Sleep was an impossibility; he simply could not do it. He paced up and down, animal-fashion, could not stop himself moving, trying to fashion a new objective. He had wanted to say sorry, at least, and secretly hoped for so much more. To have seen her would have been enough; to have touched her would have been a reward; to have had union with her would have been forgiveness, even sanctification. He felt cheated and angry and worse than that, absolutely desolate.

*You mean, like human?* Maria’s tiny voice sang in his brain and he was prepared to accept the rightness of all that now – but not the pain. All his life he had wanted to escape Roswell, New Mexico, to escape pain - and escape he did - to learn the painful way that there was no escape. Pain and humanity had followed him to a more desolate place; he rubbed the scar on his chest as if to remind himself of that fact.

Abruptly he pulled open the door of his room and paced along the corridor to the adjoining room where Isabel lay asleep. With minimum effort he waved his hand over the lock and entered, to find Isabel, in red satin pyjamas, sprawled peacefully on the bed. He held her shoulder and gently shook her into wakefulness.

“Michael? What? What are you doing here? What- what is it?” Isabel lifted herself up, pushing her hair out of her face and trying desperately to focus on the haggard figure in front of her. He sat down heavily on the side of the bed and sighed, not knowing really where to start. Or whether she would make any more sense of it than he had.

“I’ve seen Alex. He’ll probably be coming to see you in the morning…”

Isabel shifted somewhat angrily in the bed and tossed her head so that the hair went flying. “Is that all you want to tell me? Is that why you’ve woken me up? Michael!” She rebuked him crossly.

His face tightened but not before Isabel saw a shadow of the old vulnerability cross his face and pain – yes. She saw pain, too. He made a superlative effort to control himself. “No. It’s not why I have woken you up. I went to Alex to learn about Maria – couldn’t wait – had a bad feeling somehow – something not right. Isabel, when I touched that baby I had a flash – of Maria.” Garbled ideas: he could do no better.

He could see her suppressed irritation and decided that long explanations were a waste of time, would simply annoy her further. He groped in his back pocket for his wallet and with painstaking care pulled out a photograph much the worse for wear. Maria was wearing her Crashdown uniform and the silver alien symbol on the skirt practically gleamed in the dark. She was theatrical, as only Maria could be, brandishing a Tobasco sauce bottle in one hand, as if to throw it at the camera. Her silver antennae seemed to bounce into the room.

“I want you to touch this and dreamwalk for me. Please. It’s important.”

“Michael, what is this all about? Why must I do it now? This is ridiculous…have you learned NO control over the last year?” Isabel flounced back against the pillows with a snort of anger. He was forever destined to annoy, to disappoint her.

He grabbed her hands and held them firmly in his own. The photograph fluttered onto the bedcover between them. “If I say that this is important, I mean it, Issy. Listen, you know that Alex is here… coming to you tomorrow. Max has a lead on Liz and will probably take off as soon as he has an address. Do me this favour, will you? I’m the only one still in the dark. I NEED to know. I’m going out of my mind.”

“But Mrs. Valenti was quite firm about asking you to forget it…forget Maria.” Trust Isabel to focus on practicalities. She leaned across to douse the bedside light, to dismiss him…Michael was just out of control again.

Michael’s face was brooding and enigmatic. “Would you?” he said slowly. “Could you…just forget? You know what a jerk I was. All those sessions in the Eraser Room. I met you there with Alex once. Don’t you remember? We both used them. Don’t you feel partly responsible too? That destiny thing killed her. Did you ever think what it did to Alex? Things were never the same after that, were they? She forgave me for that, Iz, but I never said sorry, or thanks. I just accepted everything she gave…and walked away. Don’t you feel even slightly bad about Alex?”

He sprang to his feet and started to pace again. “I can’t believe that you think I’m still such a jerk that I don’t want the chance to say sorry…and thanks. Don’t you think I deserve another chance? Do it for me, Iz. Please.” His voice was anguished and he didn’t care, for once, that the pleading was quite unconcealed. Suddenly he was tired of being strong.

Isabel sighed and picked up the photograph, pressed herself back against the voluminous pillows and closed her eyes. Michael could hear the silence ticking…like the moments of his life. He resumed his position on the side of the bed and studied her face unwaveringly. Her eyelids fluttered and then the muscles of her face relaxed. She was in – he could feel it. He wished that his powers extended to this, so that he could share the experience: see Maria, feel Maria, smell her. Dreamwalk passion and forgiveness. That would be enough.

Isabel seemed to be prostrate forever - and he gained no sense of promise from her face. It was still, calm. Then just as he thought that he would go mad she sat up in one flowing robotic movement, opened her eyes and fixed them on his face.

“Well?”

“She’s O.K., Michael. Alive. Well. She’s a nurse. She’s happy – blithely so, if you want my honest opinion.” There was a frisson of contempt in her voice. Maria’s dreamwalk life did not impress.

“Is there – is there anyone else? What did you see? Tell me.” His voice was low, hesitant, almost frightened of the reply.

Isabel shook her head. “I couldn’t tell. She’s in a hospital clinic… something medical, anyway - really, Michael, what could I see except her dreams? You weren’t there, by the way. None of us were.” Isabel stretched and yawned. She looked at him and knew that she had not offered him enough. “She was dreaming, for god’s sake, of patients, of hospital routine…it was all very boring stuff really. There was one sweet thing…she was walking up a long driveway, picked a rose from a bush along the drive and gave it to the doorman, an old guy. She thrilled him to bits.”

Somehow Michael was disappointed. Perhaps he was too hopeful to think that after all this time there was still a place in her dreams for him. He should have been overwhelmed with joy that she WAS out there, somewhere, and not gone forever from the furnace of a fiery car to the cold ground. The relief of this realization came, but slowly, by degrees. He wanted to believe her but Alex…Alex had told him something different.

“Think, Iz, where was she? Do you have any idea?” He spoke urgently, in a voice tinged with desperation. What good was it to know she was alive but he knew not where?

Isabel’s brow furrowed. “I don’t really know. Perhaps I could try again tomorrow…you know, get her in a conscious state. I’m really too tired now, Michael. I’m afraid that’s the best I can do..” She pulled the covers up around her body and stretched langorously in the bed, reaching out one hand yet again for the light switch. “Now. I really MUST get some sleep. If you don’t mind?” She gestured towards the door before flicking the switch and leaving him again in the dark. “Go to bed. Get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”

She felt his hands move over the coverlet, searching for something. “What now?” She yawned as she spoke.

“The picture. What have you done with the picture?” His hands closed over it as he questioned and she felt rather than saw him replace it carefully in his wallet before he rose to stride for the door. “Thanks, Iz. You don’t know what you have done for me. Good night.” The door eased closed and he was gone.

Michael was in the hotel restaurant the next morning when Alex strode in, sweeping his gaze across the tables. Isabel and Max were not there and Michael was looking decidedly rumpled. His hair, although longer, had taken on its characteristic spikiness, as if he had not familiarized himself with a brush for some time. He was looking moody and was sipping black coffee. Black circles under his brown eyes.

His face brightened as Alex approached the table. Alex sat down and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. *Things do change* thought Michael cynically: *the old Alex would have started the day with a healthy breakfast “with all the food groups represented.”* He had never forgotten Judd Nelson’s line from THE BREAKFAST CLUB; he had thought of it often when Hank gave him beer for breakfast.

“Alex,” Michael looked across at him from under hooded lids. “Tell me more about this accident. When did it happen? What did they find out about the car crash?”

Momentarily discomfited and with his mind more focused on the imminent arrival of Isabel, Alex acknowledged to himself that Michael deserved some answers. “Gee, Michael, it’s something I’d rather forget. Maria’s mom had the ‘flu and a delivery was due to Marathon so Maria left the baby with Mrs. de Luca, as she was then, and took the Jetta to do the delivery. That’s really all we know. She never made it back.” He stopped deliberately, making a big theatrical performance of lighting his cigarette. A mistake because Michael saw his hands were trembling. “At ten o’clock her mom phoned me to ask if I had seen Maria, whether she had come to me, ya know? I told you that we had become quite close…I’ve loved that girl for most of my life. She only drove me mad when we were in the band together…” Alex was looking anywere but at Michael. He dragged on the cigarette and moved his head nervously from side to side. He coughed into the palm of his hand before continuing. “You know how Maria likes to take charge of things; the guys loved her and suddenly they were listening to her, following her lead, and after those auditions when they felt that her singing got us the gig I was a lost force. I had to get over that. But when the baby was confirmed she lost interest in singing..she lost interest in most things actually. It was only after Michaela was born that she was beginning to get her old sparkle back.”

“Then what? I mean, what happened after Maria’s mom phoned you?”

“Well, I went to Maria’s apartment and got her mom and we hotfooted it down to the sheriff’s house and alerted him to the fact that Maria was missing. He sent out two patrol cars and it was maybe an hour later that we heard about the Jetta. A total burn-out.” Alex’s face was contorted as he remembered that night. He did not want to think of it again…normally, he tried to forget it and was getting better at it.

He was so involved in the memory of it all that Isabel arrived at the table unnoticed. She was tense, nervous about Alex and trying desperately to control herself. “Michael. I did it. I got through again. She was walking up the drive again, did the same ol’ ritual with the door guy but this time I saw the signboard of the hospital.. it was ……” she repeated the name slowly and emphatically as if she had learned it by rote.

Alex was stunned: both by Isabel’s informal arrival and with confusion at her news. He rose with customary chivalry, nervously stubbing out his cigarette on a plate. Uncharacteristically Alex, but there was no ashtray in evidence. “Hello Isabel. To say this is a surprise would be an understatement.” He did not attempt to touch her and seemed to find it difficult to sustain eye contact. Michael studied his reaction carefully. After all, he knew Alex…the guy was so on the surface it used to be so easy. But now. Now his mind was not on Isabel: the old Alex would have blushed and gushed; this one stood by diffidently, pale-faced, taut and formal.

Michael could sense Isabel’s disappointment. He could tell that Alex was mulling over the jumble of information with a sense of dread: life on earth may have been unpredictable and tragic in their absence but he could sense Alex’s dismay that the alien arrival was already causing complications.

“What is Isabel talking about, Michael? What’s going on?” He stared at Michael with compressed lips.

Michael grabbed a cruet set and started playing with it between his fingers, turning it around and around, before he spoke. He did not look at Alex or Isabel but seemed to derive strength from the pointless turning and twisting of the salt container. “Alex, I know that this might come as a shock to you but I don’t think that Maria is… dead. I think that she is very much alive. I got a gut feeling when I touched the baby, ya know, a… flash.” He looked up then and stared blindly at the other man, “Then last night Isabel confirmed it. I asked her to dream walk, using Maria’s picture. She’s not dead, Alex. She’s out there somewhere, I don’t know where and I don’t know why, but something is wrong and I intend to find out what.” The salt container crashed on to the tablecloth, spilling a generous amount of salt in the process.

Alex’s jaw dropped. “You’re mad!” he stammered, all colour blanching from his face. “You’re nuts! How can you say that? Maria would never have knowingly left her baby: that was her life. You’re dreaming this…to make yourself feel better. Don’t do this to us, Michael…you can have NO idea what the whole nightmare was like. And if you told Mrs. Valenti your ideas she would go absolutely ballistic. We’re just getting over the whole thing. You MUST let this drop.”

The tension between them was a tangible thing. Terrible, awe-inspiring, hostile…

Isabel intervened. “Alex, don’t get upset. I didn’t imagine this. I’ve dream-walked twice and each time the scenario is the same. Maria is alive, working as a nurse and seems to be happy. Michael was never the type to fantasize, you know that.”

“Michael has good reason to fantasize now,” Alex barked, drawing the attention of a middle-aged couple at the table next door who were silently working their way through ham and eggs. “For god’s sake, he left Maria in the lurch, made a goddam miserable goodbye, sailed off without a care, putting his cause before concern, and left that poor girl pregnant and emotionally bankrupt. If he had ANY humanity,“ he drew out those words with cynicism and heavy emphasis, “he would naturally dream up some yarn like this to make himself feel better.” *My god, you hate me, don’t you, Alex? You hate me for what I did to her; you watched her suffer; you cared.* In the midst of the angst Michael could feel it in his heart to be sorry for his human friend.

Poor Isabel was a forgotten presence. This was not the reunion that she had dreamed about, constructed in her mind. She rose from the table with as much dignity as she could muster. “Michael, I’m going to get Max. We should tell him about this. He’ll be more objective, maybe have some idea of what we do next.”

The men were so engrossed in their silent animosity that her departure went unnoticed.

Alex lit another cigarette in an effort to exude composure. He drew on it with the deliberation of an asthmatic needing an oxygen mask, then lifting his head to exhale. The middle-aged couple expressed their disapproval in a unified frown.

Michael had grabbed the salt sellar again – a substitute for cigarettes. He did not look at Alex as he spoke. “You’re mad at me, aren’t you? For Maria’s sake? Just how close were you before this accident? Had you actually asked her to go with you to Vermont? Where does this leave Isabel, just supposing that I am right?” Then he looked up blankly and stared at the other man. “We each have our concerns, right?”

“How do you expect me to answer that? But, question for question: yes, I reckon we were close. Liz left – I told you that last night – and that sure didn’t help Maria’s mental and emotional state. Her mom was kind of a zombie about the whole pregnancy thing – too close for comfort, I suppose – too much a replay of her own mistakes…so Maria got no support from that quarter. I mean, her mom tried to be understanding but overnight Maria’s world dwindled to Roswell – like, for life, earning the same kind of contempt her mom had done. I had to show Maria that the male sex were not ALL jerks, ya know? And it tore me up to see Maria, so empty and lost, when I remembered her with such fire…and courage…before. She always had more guts than Liz and I put together.”

“You haven’t answered all my questions.” He had declined to mention Isabel.

Alex sighed. “I really don’t think it’s any of your damn business, Michael, but if you insist, then yes, she had agreed to come with me to Vermont with the baby. Not a marriage thing straight away…a kind of trial. She was going to get a job, and so was I, and we were committed to work together for me to qualify and then…kind of see where we stood then. She WAS desperate to get out of Roswell – but I’m not telling you anything new there. Even you knew that. In time, I was hoping that I could support her to get some start in life…better herself. She always underplayed her talents, was kinda weighed down by family history and a kinda genetic sense of failure. You, by the way, did nothing to remove that mindset.” Alex’s disappointment that the fairy-tale world had been ripped away came through every syllable he uttered.

Michael was thankful that he had finished speaking, trailed off into a private silence when Max and Isabel slipped into the vacant seats at the table and before Michael could retort Max had taken charge.

“Listen. Isabel has told me the whole thing. We now have two problems. Firstly, Valenti has kept his promise. I‘ve just had a call from him and he is already looking into the matter of Liz’s address. He reckons I should have the information by lunchtime today. As regards Maria…has it occurred to any of you that this place is the same place they took Topolsky?”

This silenced them all. Alex was the first to break it with a frightened intake of breath. “My god. Why? This is like reliving a nightmare.“ He looked round at them apologetically. “I’m not blaming you guys but you have to understand that life was a lot less complicated…at an inter-personal level at any rate, after you all left.” Alex’s heartache was too complicated to accept the possibility that Maria was still alive.

Isabel flushed and squirmed in her seat and Alex was sensitive enough to know that she had taken the barb personally. “Isabel, nothing personal. But life in Roswell is usually pretty dull; we wait for the annual conventions to liven things up and now you arrive back and within hours you turn us upside down. Maria alive and abducted…there’s no other word for it…so now we must look for sinister motives. She would NEVER have left her baby.”

“Exactly.” said Max with quiet calm. “Exactly, Alex. So what do you propose? That we just forget it, pretend that Isabel dreamed nothing, that Michael take Mrs. Valenti’s advice and walk away? Is that what you want to do? Just pretend that Maria is dead, knowing now what you know…or that you just conveniently forget that we ever walked back into town?”

“No, of course not.” Alex spoke sharply. “Maybe you guys are used to continual complications. We humans…well, I suppose we need a bit more time to think things through. So. What do you suggest we do now, then?”

“It seems to me that there is no alternative but to go up there…to this hospital and try to find Maria. To find answers why she left you all in Roswell without a backward glance. Why she seems happy and oblivious of the fact that she has a baby, that she left you. You’re obviously so upset, Alex, that I’d imagine you’d want to know the truth, not so?” One could rely upon Max to suggest the obvious calmly and logically.

Isabel gasped. Max seemed oblivious to the undercurrents but Michael understood and grabbed her hand reassuringly under the table. As she looked at him he saw the tears gather in her eyes. Dreams are illusory things. He squeezed her hand and continued to hold it and she flashed him a grateful smile.

Michael asked a question to draw attention away from Isabel as much as anything else. “What about you, Max? Listen, I can go alone. It’s my issue, anyway. You must go to Florida to find Liz, not waste time here with us.”

He ignored the sign of an outburst from Alex at his idea but Alex exploded anyway. “If there is any chance of Maria’s being alive then I’m coming too. You’re not going alone. No way.”

The waiter arrived to remove Michael’s cold coffee and the cruet set with a certain amount of ostentation.

Max rose to his feet. “I think that we should all go. I have waited so long to see Liz, a few more days won’t make a difference. There will be time to sort out my problems. I reckon that this is more important. It doesn’t sound good. What do you say we settle our accounts here and leave, say, in an hour?”

Isabel rose, too. “I’ll go and pack and see you all in the foyer in an hour.“ She walked away without a formal goodbye to Alex.

Michael ran a tired hand through his hair. “I’d better go shower and change. This has been a bad night. O.K. Alex. Are you going to come with us?” Though lessened, the hostility between them was still there.

“I said it, didn’t I? Now, don’t go without me. I’ll have to go home, make some excuse to my folks, throw a few things in a bag and I’ll be back. Don’t go without me.“ The last remark was addressed exclusively to Max.

After he had left, Max held Michael’s arm as they left the restaurant together. “I see that this is going to get messy and complicated, Michael. I’m asking you to stay calm and not make the whole thing worse. There’s Isabel and Alex to consider as well as Maria; ya know that, don’t you?”

“Did you think I can’t see that, Maxwell?” Michael spat bitterly, shaking off Max’s arm, and then he walked away.

He had slept in the back seat of the car for most of the time, folded awkwardly, with Isabel leaning against his shoulder. In the front Max and Alex kept up a murmured conversation as Alex acted navigator. The sleep was sorely needed after his restless night but did little to refresh his soul. Maria intruded into his dreams; there were remembered fragments of their volatile relationship. He remembered her strained efforts to look pleased with his gift of shampoo and the catastrophic meal together afterwards when he asked her to pay the bill in such a careless manner. He relived in his mind that last meeting at the UFO Centre after he had killed Pierce. His emotions had been so taut at that moment that his vulnerability where Maria was concerned had to be pushed away; his mind was consumed with the idea that he was a born killer - to the point that being a lover was irrelevant.

But most of all, he remembered that fateful night at his apartment, the night they had gone to meet Topolsky, when Max had struck him to the ground and the orb was lost. They were both vulnerable that night: she was shivering with fear, tearful and plagued with guilt that she had somehow let him down by telling Max and Liz that they had gone to meet Topolsky. She would have done anything to make it up to him for that. She also knew that his feelings were in chaos. He and Max had had their disputes before, even got physical on occasion, but this dispute had been serious: Max accused him of fouling up and Michael had been angry with himself that they had lost the orb to Valenti. Max had shamed him for being deceitful and he had felt shamed, after having been the most forceful opponent to a meeting. He remembered that Maria had been silent that night, as, by unspoken agreement, he had driven her to his apartment.

She had made him herb tea, one of her mother’s specials, which was one of her regular donations to his food budget…along with Tobasco sauce. She had not wanted an argument but he had. He spewed forth all his anger on Maria – the failure of the evening had been her fault – the loss of the orb – that he could not trust her anymore. Uncharacteristically she had not fought back for all her defences were down and her silent refuge was tears and acceptance of all his abuse. She had wanted to go, to leave and return home, on foot if necessary.

He could not quite remember how it all happened after that. It started with a guilt thing on his part, he supposed. How many times before had they made up their fights with physical closeness, with each trying to comfort and close the internal voids in the other? Somehow, after that, they were on his couch and then the floor and he lost himself and his misery by plunging into her for solace, being lost inside her again and again. She was not unwilling, he knew that; she was frightened but sublimated her fear in passion, in the hot giving of herself to him as proof of her loyalty, her love, her absolute devotion. He knew that he withdrew from her after that, turning his attention and energies to the cause, to Tess and Nasedo. Without words he relegated her to a back burner, and he had succeeded: he could not recapture for himself the passion of that night. Maria, for her part, became more needy emotionally and this irritated him. Now he could understand why. He wondered if she had known of her condition by the last time he saw her; he also knew that conjecture was pointless; Maria was quite capable of concealing her truths, too. She would never have used that knowledge as leverage to persuade him to stay. He replayed that night again and again as the miles sped by which would bring him back to the opportunity to make good. He prayed for that, even though human religion had never featured largely in his life.

It was dark when the BMW finally whispered to a stop in front of a motel, not unlike the one on 285S. This was an irony he did not wish to appreciate. Michael struggled into a sitting position, dislodging Isabel from his shoulder as he did so. Max switched off the ignition and turned his head to study the sleepy passengers in the rear.

“We’re here. Too late to do anything tonight so I suggest that we all get a good rest before tomorrow. Michael, I suggest that we send you in tomorrow; maybe pass yourself off as a doctor. I’ve got my laptop with me and might try to find out some information about this place before we do anything. Does anyone have any other suggestions?”

Alex opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it. Michael knew what Alex wanted to say – that he should be the one to go, that Michael was too volatile, too emotionally involved, would mess it up. He decided that now was the time to make the grand gesture and leaned forward to put a hand on Alex’s shoulder.

“Maybe it would be a good idea for Alex to come with me. I reckon that he’d make a more convincing doctor than I ever could and Maria would be less surprised to see him.. I don’t want to shock or frighten her. How d’ya feel about that, Alex?” In truth, he was partly frightened of doing this alone.

Alex merely nodded in agreement and Michael could see and feel his shoulders sag with relief.

They booked in and parted amicably for the night. No-one wanted the formality of a meal together or mindless talk to distract them from what lay ahead on the following day.

Michael found himself again alone in a bland motel room. His body ached; the scar was torturing him tonight yet he revelled in the human physical pain as a kind of punishment. His whole physical being was registering exhaustion and he knew that sleep was the only panacea. He could not afford to pace the night away or torture himself with everything that he had fouled up. He wearily stripped off his clothes, dropping them on the floor where he stood and then flung himself on top of the bed and tried to close his eyes.

Minutes later he was still no closer to tranquility of mind. On an impulse he took out the frayed photograph from his wallet, stared hard at the laughing girl who was tossing Tobasco at him, placed it over his heart and secured it with his hand. He closed his eyes.

Within moments he had done it; he had achieved the dream trance which Isabel had practised with such ease for years. Maria was thinner and her blonde hair was no longer twisted and curled in the style that he remembered and which had amused him. Blonde, she still was, but her hair was longer, framing a face which had lost its angelic chubbiness. It swung loosely as she walked down the hospital corridor, gaily greeting staff and patients. He watched her kneel beside an old man and put her hand on his knee. The laughing expression changed to something more kindly, a real compassion and love for a mind lost to time.

“Mr. Valenti, can I help you with that?” Maria gently picked up the dish of pears which the old man had been attempting in vain to spear on the end of his spoon and lifted a small portion of pear to his mouth. All the time she talked gently to him. “Why is it that you love pears so much?”

Still on her knees in a crouched position she fed him the pears, almost crooning a litany to him in her melodic voice. “Your son’ll come soon…you see…I know that he hasn’t been since you moved here…but I guess he’s busy with work an’all. You mustn’t worry or fuss. We love you…you know that…I know that a father loves his child..any child…but sometimes, ya know, life gets in the way. We don’t always show people how we feel.” It seemed appropriate that as she said these words she was wiping the pear juice from the corners of his wrinkled lips, smoothing his hair into some semblance of order, and re-arranging the blanket over his knees.

“Can I read you the paper for a while?” The old man nodded, then allowed his head to droop over his chest, eyes closed as Maria recited snippets from the first page that she felt he would like. Michael felt the same sense of voyeurism as he had many times before when he stood outside her window in the old days, unwilling to disclose his presence. He had wanted to then and no more so than now.

A brisk efficient nurse arrived at his side in the doorway. Could they see him? He could not tell. “Nurse de Luca. If you’ve finished here it’s time for pill round.”

“Coming,” Maria almost sang the word gaily. She looked down at the sleeping old man and rose to her feet, smoothing out the crisp white of the uniform as she did so. She looked across the room and stared straight into Michael’s eyes.

She smiled at him, quirking up the corners of her mouth, that generous passionate mouth. “Can I help you sir? Mr. Valenti’s sleeping at the moment. Are you his son? It’d be so great if you were, ya know? He’s been waiting so long for a visit. I reckon that he’s going to die of a broken heart if someone doesn’t come soon. He deserves some good news – not the newspaper kind.” She was putting down the newspaper as she said the words.

Michael’s heart seemed to freeze in that instant. He could not frame a reply.

He knew his heart had thawed the next morning because he could practically hear it palpitating in his chest. He felt faintly nauseous and Alex’s fouling up the car with cigarette smoke did little to help his condition. Alex was drawing on the cigarette like a man possessed and Michael did not have to be a genius to recognize that he, too, was nervous.

They had parked the BMW in the parking area outside the main steps of the clinic but facing down the drive so that they could see her approach. Michael was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, having opened every window in the car. He had not told the others about the dreamwalk; life was already complicated enough, he figured. He had, however, already decided to send Alex in first; firstly, he figured that Alex deserved that much and secondly her reaction to Alex might put his own situation into better perspective.

“My God! Here she comes!” Alex’s voice reflected his stunned disbelief. Michael’s head snapped round from where he had been trying to lose himself in a splash of red from rhododendrons in the flower bed.

Maria de Luca was practically skipping up the drive. She was walking with a young male intern who seemed to be hanging on her every word. Michael could tell, even from the distance, that she was giving him the kidding routine. She stopped suddenly and plunged aside into the flower bed where she proceeded to pick a flower just as she had done in Isabel’s dream. His heart lurched at the sight of her and he could not look at Alex, merely sensed the tension from him.

Alex broke his reverie with a sigh which seemed torn out of him. “She’s alive! I just cannot believe this. She’s alive.” He was like a stuck record.

As he spoke the garden sprinklers rose to shower the flowers ahead of them. Maria, still standing in the flower bed, was caught in the gush of spray. She doubled up and they could tell that she was laughing, holding out the flower for the young man to take. Chivalrously he dashed forward into the hail of water to grab the flower and her hand to pull her onto the driveway. She collapsed against him, still laughing, and Michael could tell the intern’s intentions were not merely chivalry.

“What do we do now?” Alex asked.

“I reckon that we both wait for her and maybe you should talk to her first. She’s comfortable with you,” Michael mumbled, reluctant to make this suggestion, although it fitted his plan. As they were discussing the issue they could see that Maria was gesturing for the young man to proceed while she stood there, dripping water and smoothing down her uniform. Then, as an afterthought, she changed her mind and followed him up the driveway.

Alex slid out of the car and Michael followed swiftly from his side. He stood beside the driver’s door and let Alex walk forward to approach her.

“Maria!”

She looked across at the two men enquiringly and with laughter still dancing in her eyes. “Excuse me a minute. I’ll be with you right now.”

As the young intern passed through the main entrance door with a friendly wave of his hand, Maria approached the doorman. “Here’s your flower for the day, Ernie,“ she said. “Roses again today. Next week, something really special cos it’s your birthday. Nearly retirement time. No more greeting people.”

The aged doorman broke into a broad smile and accepted his flower carefully. “I’d come here every day just to see you, Maria,” he said kindly. “You’re a dose of sunshine and what would I to do without my daily flower?”

“Maria!”

Alex called again and she turned back down the steps to approach him. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten you, you know? Just wanted to give Ernie his flower before it wilted. Can I help you?”

Alex was aghast at the irony of her words. “Maria! It’s me, Alex. Don’t you recognize me?”

She furrowed her brow and looked at him with greater focus and concentration. “Do I know you? Your face is kinda familiar. Were we in grade school together? I’ve never seen you here before. Would you be the new doctor we’ve been expecting?”

Michael seized the opportunity to step forward with purpose to interrupt, “No, I’m the new doctor.”

She turned a puzzled glance towards him and then her face stirred with faint recognition. “ Aah! I think that we did meet, didn’t we? Yesterday? I think you came to check on Mr Valenti?” Michael drew in a quick breath: was he dreaming or was he not? Was she dreaming?

“Yes, we did.” Michael said shortly. “I see that you’re pretty wet, Miss da Luca. Can I give you any help? A lift home, maybe, to dry off and change? I think that I have time to help you before reporting on duty.”

She wrinkled her nose in laughter and suppressed a pout which stirred him with familiar pain. How many times had he seen that expression on her face before?

“I suppose that I look like a drowned rat, don’t I?” She gestured down at her skirt, clinging limply round her upper thighs and her hair bounced against her cheeks.

Alex was having trouble keeping himself together. He was dumbfounded and embarrassed; Maria had not seemed to recognize him. Fortunately, Maria was too busy trying to explain away her appearance to notice.

“Look, it’s real nice of you to offer me a lift, Mr..?” She paused, waiting for a reply.

Michael pressed home his advantage. “This is my friend, Alex Whitman. He’s from your home town, I believe. Roswell, New Mexico?”

She looked puzzled, then. “How on earth could you know that? My god, I haven’t been there in absolute ages. My mom moved away, you know. There’s been no reason to go back there.”

Alex somehow produced a strangled noise in his throat. “I remember you, Maria…and… it was in grades. Don’t you remember me? And your mom…have you heard from her lately? I saw her, ya know. Like a couple of days ago.”

Her face broke into a radiant smile. “Have you really? How wonderful! I haven’t heard for a while. She said that she was traveling.” She gave an impish grin. “My mom…she is something different. Last I heard she had met this wonderful mystic man and they had gone to feel the aura in Mexico or somethin’. They don’t believe in cellphones.” She laughed, an open, full-throated laugh and then apologetically looked down at her appearance.

“Look, I can’t really talk now. It’s real nice of you to offer me a lift but I wouldn’t dream of bothering you. Listen, I don’t want to make you late and I live real close…in the nursing quarters just beyond the grounds. It was nice to meet you and I guess I’ll see you on your rounds.“ The last remark was directed at Michael.

Nonplussed, Michael had no ready reply for this and intuitively knew that it was not the time to alarm her by pressing himself on her further. Alex, it seemed, was more quick-witted.

“Listen. I’m just visiting my friend,“ he gestured to Michael airily, “for a couple of days and your mom gave me something to give to you. I wonder if you would do us the pleasure of having dinner this evening at a hotel. We don’t really know the best places to dine round here but if you could suggest somewhere…somewhere public, ya know, so you don’t have to feel threatened.”

This Maria was completely without cynicism. What had happened to the Teflon babe? “You both look far too nice to have sinister intentions,” she laughed, “and I’d love to hear how mom is doing. She’s real naughty to leave me in the dark for so long but how can I be mad when she’s sent me a gift? It’s real generous, Mr…?” She had forgotten his name already.

“Whitman. Alex Whitman. Are you sure you don’t remember me from school?”

Maria twisted her hands together in some embarrassment. “I really wish I could say that I do remember you, Alex. I feel a total washout. You gotta forgive me. I must dig out my year books and try to look you up. Maybe some chord will be stirred then.”

“So you’ll join us for dinner?” Michael felt that he barked this request but being so close to the woman of his dreams who smiled up at him in innocence of his previous behaviour to her was driving him insane. “I’m real happy to pick you up.”

She thought carefully before she replied. With the slightest tone of reservation she said, “I don’t see that there would be any harm in that. It would be good to get news of mom and maybe Alex can jog my memory about Roswell Primary.”

“About seven, then? From the nurse’s quarters. I’ll find it.”

She turned to go, realizing in some fluster that the delay would make her even more late for work. “That would be good. Sorry, but I really must go if I don’t want to get fired. Listen, could you maybe tell Sister why I’m late. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

“Sure,” said Michael calmly, “I’ll do it now.” And then he let her go.

Alex restrained himself until the girl was out of earshot but both of them were compelled to keep their eyes riveted on her retreating back. Michael drank in every swinging stride, every curve of her small, slight figure and longed to run after her, grab her and never let her go.

He knew that Alex would be angry and the outburst soon came.

“You knew. You knew, Michael, and you never said a word.”

“Knew what?” Michael turned away up the steps to keep his promise about informing staff of Maria’s delay. “Hold on, I’ll be back.”

When he returned, Alex was seated in the car, fugging up the interior with a Marlborough.

Michael slid into the driver’s seat. “You weren’t surprised that she would not remember us. How come you knew?” He spoke with some bitterness, “I wondered why you were so obliging as to let me speak to her first. Now I know.”

Michael started the ignition somewhat viciously and kicked the car into life. He turned his head to watch for the reverse. “It’s nothing sinister, Alex. I managed to dreamwalk into Maria’s dream last night. She didn’t recognize me. I didn’t want to believe it but there you are…you saw for yourself. She doesn’t seem to remember anything about any of us. We were wondering why she left her baby but it now seems pretty obvious that whatever has happened to her has involved killing her entire store of memories. Maybe she’ll recognize Max and Isabel.” He hated that he kept talking about the baby like some detached thing, something that was not part of him. He told himself that he did it for Alex.

The car was speeding down the driveway but of Maria there was no sign.

It was agreed, at Max’s suggestion, that they all meet for dinner that evening but that they would set it up as an accident. Max and Isabel would drift past the table, there would be greetings and then an invitation offered to join the party. The tension between Alex and Michael resurfaced on the matter of who would pick up Maria; eventually, Michael acquiesced to the suggestion that Alex do it and he would take her home. He hoped for better things at the end of the evening.

While the others were bathing and dressing, Michael, on impulse, picked up the phone in his room. It did not take long to reach Sheriff Valenti to obtain Liz’s address; it proved even quicker to locate a telephone number. With quick deliberation, he dialed her number.

“Liz Parker, speaking. Can I help you?”

For a moment he was stunned, short on words, nervous.

“Liz Parker, speaking. My folks aren’t home right now. Can I help you?”

“Liz.”

There was a pause and when she spoke the tremor in her voice shimmered across the miles of telephone line. “This..is…Liz. Who’s speaking, please?”

“You’re not gonna believe this, Liz, but it’s…”

A gasp; a silence.

“Liz, are you still there? I found your diary once and read it; I told you that I had another reason to envy Max Evans. We didn’t tell anyone; I didn’t even tell Maria and she was your best friend. Do you know who’s speaking to you, now?”

Her only reply was a strangled sob.

“It can’t be you…can it? Are you really back?…Michael?”

Relief that it had been so easy surged through him. It was like a panadol to have a link with Maria…with her best friend. “Yep. It is. Liz, we need your help. It’s Maria.”

Now Liz responded quickly and angrily. “O.K. Enough of the sick joke. Whoever you are, I’m gonna hang up right now. There is no help for Maria. I’m not listening to anymore.”

Fearful that she would put down the phone Michael spoke hurriedly and with feeling. “Liz, please don’t. Don’t hang up: it’s true. I’ve seen her; we’ve all seen her…Alex, Isabel, me and..Max.”

“Max?” The single word was whispered, like a dying sigh.

“Liz, we’re all back and we’ve been looking for you. Max got your address from Valenti. He was coming to see you but this Maria thing got in the way. He’s here to help me first. But we need you, Liz. It’s too complicated to explain right now but if you could come here…Maria’s alive but she doesn’t remember any of us…even Alex. If there’s one person in the world who could help her, it’s you, Liz. Whaddya say?”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Michael despaired. She did not believe him, did not want to believe him, wanted to put Roswell and the complexity of alien encounter behind her.

“Liz? It’s really me, O.K.? Who else knew about the diary? Who else would know about Maria’s Czechoslavakians, her grief drops, the old soap factory? What else can I say to convince you? Maria..is alive…please help her.”

“Michael. Why are you back?”

His voice was in danger of breaking, cracking up with the intensity and personal meaning for him of that question.

“We’re all back for the same reason, Liz. We walked away to find our real destiny. I came for Maria; it’s killed me to meet her and speak to her…and she doesn’t know me, doesn’t remember all that pain I caused her. I want her back. I came back to find her, to say sorry. You know why Max came back. I don’t have to spell that out for you, surely?”

“Where are you?”

Michael told her, then put down the phone.

Alex seemed to take forever in the BMW to fetch Maria. Michael sat in the restaurant, strangled in a suit which Isabel and her powers had organized for him. His hair was plastered down with water; he relived the night as a special agent. Nursing a cherry coke, he tried to rehearse what he was going to say. From the corner of his eye he could see Isabel and Max sitting at the bar, trying desperately to make conversation though it wasn’t hard to see that they kept lapsing into silence, like some old married couple.

Eventually Alex ushered Maria into the restaurant and Michael drew in a long breath, feeling that this might be his last human breath on this planet. She was wearing a gold strappy backless top and he recognized it from the night of the soap factory. She looked fragile but was artlessly laughing up at Alex who was in fine form, Alex-style, with his store of jokes and witticisms. He could not stop the stab of jealousy. He saw Max and Isabel at the bar stiffen in surprise, even shock.

Something drove him to stand up. Not part of the civilized niceties imparted to him by Hank. He drew out a chair for Maria and she smiled at him in gratitude.

“Thanks for making my lateness this morning such a painless event,“ she breathed at him. “I thought Sister Murphy would string me up…or have me cleaning bedpans for a week. I don’t know what you said but it worked.”

Michael merely bowed his head in acknowledgement. “My pleasure, ma’am. I felt strongly that you shouldn’t have been punished for getting Ernie a flower.”

She laughed, and, as if on cue, Max and Isabel drifted up, there was a swift exchange of pleasantries and surprised recognition and within minutes everyone was seated at the same table.

Michael could sense that she felt more at ease with another female at the table. There was no dawning recognition of Isabel or Max, but particularly of Isabel who had gone out of her way to make Maria’s life so miserable when they first met. He watched Alex carefully, and realized with a sinking heart that Alex’s feelings were very much involved. He could not take his eyes of her.

Nevertheless, it was with some surprise to all when Alex pulled out his wallet and eagerly drew out a photograph. “Maria, I just have to show you this. You have the most dismal memory! Recognise us?”

Maria took the photograph in some bewilderment. “My God! Where did you get this? I don’t remember this at all. How absolutely amazing!”

The photograph did its round of the table and reached Michael last. He kept hold of it and studied it carefully. His feelings blipped in his chest. It was a Christmas photo of Alex and Maria at about eight years old, both standing starchily either side of some dime-store Father Christmas. They were both trying to suppress a giggle and each was holding some identical boxed gift wrapped in green and red.

“Don’t you remember, Maria? My dad was away on business that Christmas Eve and my mom was busy cooking. Your mom took us to Macy’s for a whirl-around and bought us each a present. You wanted the photograph.“

“Did she really?” There was wonderment in Maria’s voice. “D’ya know, I never remember my mom celebrating Christmas much. She was more involved with the solstice and all that kind of thing.”

Alex reached across to reclaim the photograph from Michael and restored it to his wallet. He took out another one. “What about this?”

Another photograph did the rounds. Maria was a cheeky ten-year-old with a way-out hairstyle even then. She was sitting down on some steps, clasping an aged Dalmatian who was literally lapping up her attention. She wore red sneakers.

Michael remembered his flash with instant shame, the flash that he had denied to her. He studied her reaction very carefully. He did not think that he imagined a momentary discomfort. “Alex, we gonna be boring these people soon. That’s Dotty. He didn’t last long after that, not long after my dad…died.” The pause was significant.

He could tell that Alex was shocked. She remembered the dog. My god, she remembered the dog. And he could swear that she remembered her father and what he did…and it sure as hell had nothing to do with death.

“One more, Maria. Just to re-assure you that we were at primary together.” Michael suppressed his annoyance that Alex was trying so hard and monopolizing the conversation. Alex pulled out the last photograph and handed it directly to Maria. There they were, the three of them, looking as if they had grown up together, close. Maria, Alex and Liz were in a tree, barefoot, swinging their legs and arms around each other. Someone had stood on the ground below, looked up and captured a moment of a unified life.

Maria swallowed and studied the photograph very carefully. He felt that they could all tell that she was unwilling to let it go. “Gee, Alex, I ‘m ashamed to have forgotten all this. Who’s the girl? She definitely looks kinda familiar. I do know her. Is she still in Roswell? I really must look her up if I ever go there again. I mean, ya gotta remember your past cos it’s part of who you are, isn’t it? I don’t like forgetting people. People are important.”

People are important. Michael thought instantly of Ernie and his daily flower and of Maria’s succour to him on the night he left Hank. She took him in, and dried his hair, and placed him on her bed and crooned to him that everything would be O.K. and she didn’t need to know why he was crying or why he had pitched up outside her window weeks after his nasty rejection of her. This was a Maria truth which gave him some hope.

He was surly and silent during dinner. He felt like a seventeen year-old again, lounging in the Crashdown silently fighting anger and letting the others live life and enjoy it. He didn’t know what to say to her; there was no common point of interest that she remembered and he was in too deep to surface again with trivial conversation. Conversation had never been part of his style. Now he despised himself for it. So really, he told himself, he might as well not be there. Alex played every emotional string, picked up every psychological vibe, and monopolized her, despite the intervention of Max and Isabel’s urbanity. He felt an outsider and this was a feeling he had hoped never to experience again. Isabel was chastened, humbled and clung very much to her brother.

After coffee, Maria looked at her watch. “Gee, this was a great evening but I must get back. Can’t afford to be late tomorrow morning.”

Michael wasted no time picking up the cue. It had seemed an agony till he could be alone with her. He rose and moved to pull out her chair. “I’ll take you back. Let’s go. I’ve got early duty tomorrow, too.”

She looked surprised at his offer but made no protest; she was comfortable with them all now.

Alex put out a hand. “Maria, can we make dinner tomorrow evening? Please say yes. I haven’t even unpacked your mom’s gift yet and I’ll be leaving the following morning. Whaddya say?”

She paused, almost warily, and considered the suggestion. It was not her first inclination to accept. Isabel rushed in to save the day. “Please say yes, Maria, or else I’ll be stuck with all these boring males talking basketball all night.”

“O.K. But I’ll be a bit later tomorrow. I’ve got things to do after work. So maybe don’t wait dinner for me; I’ll join you for coffee.”

No-body argued; it was enough that she agreed to come again. The courtesies of farewells seemed to take forever to Michael who was impatient to be outside in the dark. Not like the usual times when darkness was his only friend but because he wanted to drink in the fragrance of her, sense her body next to him even though he couldn’t touch her, watch that blonde curtain of hair which had smothered his face during so many hot sessions in his apartment.

Maria was uneasy with him. He could sense it but didn’t know how to wipe away that feeling. She shivered in the night air and instinctively he took off his jacket and placed it round her shoulders. She accepted it gratefully. Max would have been proud of him, he though wryly.

”Are you sorry you left Roswell?” He tried to ask the question carelessly, and felt foolish with such an inanity, for so it must seem to her.

She thought about it, puckering her face slightly in a familiar way which twisted every vital organ inside him. “I don’t think so. Ya know, I don’t really remember much. You might think that’s strange. Sometimes I think so too. I went for therapy for a while after I came here; Dr. Kramer figured that I must have been very unhappy there and so I kinda suppressed the memories. It used to bother me..but he was right, really. It’s no good looking back all the time…there’s no point. So I have stopped worrying about it and I’m real happy now..and I sense my mom is happy with her mystic and I’ll see her sometime soon.”

This was the most she had ever said to him and he was touched at her frankness and the intimacy of her feelings to him – a virtual stranger in her eyes. He swung the car out of the car park with practiced ease and asked her for directions.

Maria prattled now the ice was broken. He might as well have been Ernie and he reflected, with some irony how uncomfortable he used to be with her desire for conversation. Now he could have spent the whole night listening to her discuss dishwashers or dalmatians. All too soon he had followed her directions to the Nurses’ home.

He attacked the subject voraciously as he switched off the engine. “Maria. What do you know of old Mr. Valenti? How long has he been with you? Has his son ever made contact?”

She misconstrued his interest and shook her head sadly, the exuberance suddenly vaporized. “About six months, I think. He came about the same time I did and I suppose that’s why I have a special interest. He’s so sad, ya know? He sits every day, with a kind of resignation that no-one will ever come. I tried to see his records one day so that I could maybe phone his family, his son, and beg them to come to see him. But someone must have borrowed them ..I couldn’t find his file. I should have made the effort to do something.” She was reproving herself, not speaking to him.

“I think that he might be from Roswell, New Mexico,” said Michael, in a low voice, and not daring to look at her.

He immediately felt her withdrawal, maybe even fear. She opened the car door and lunged to get out.

“Now that would be too much like coincidence.” The laugh was forced, even Michael-the-insensitive could determine that. He sprang out too but she waved him emphatically away. “Please, don’t come out. It’s not far. Here’s your jacket.” She made to peel the jacket from her shoulders.

Michael could not stop himself from moving forward to place a hand firmly on each of her shoulders to keep the jacket in place. “Don’t!” he said urgently. “Don’t. It’s cold. Keep it and I’ll get it tomorrow. I expect Alex will pick you up again.”

Something made her look at his face carefully, curiously, as if she were studying every plane and angle of it, as if his face were a strange map that she needed to memorise. He wanted to hold his breath; no, he wanted to plunge his head and capture that passionate mouth and kiss the memories back for her. Max would have been proud of his control.

As it was, he allowed himself to be scrutinized because this was better than to be ignored. “It was a great evening, Maria,” he said gently. “It was nice of you to give an evening to the new doctor to make him feel at home.”

She smiled, a complete smile which was without guile, without deceit and a phenomenon he had not often seen before. “I like your friends, Michael. I cannot believe that I don’t remember Alex. And you are very kind, you really are. It will be fun to work with you.”