by Daniel Pyne
“Well, not exactly asleep, though,” Helen is saying. “Just sort of like with my eyes closed and resting?” She thinks about it. “But there were some dreams.”
Ginger crosses from the doorway to the bed, all business, avoiding Jay’s gaze. She lowers the bedrail for him to hold on to as he sits up and slides his legs off the edge.
“Marshal Doe said you needed some help.”
“Helen was on the list,” Jay says.
Ginger tugs at Helen’s jumper, straightening it, as if she isn’t listening.
“I’m talking about the list of names your husband was going to sell to Dunn.”
Now she looks at him. Her eyes asking: Where does this go? And it’s funny, because Jay is wondering the same thing. Helen is up on her feet, arms out, spinning. “Mommy said her old husband went away with a mermaid. She cried a lot.”
Ginger allows that she did, but adds, pointedly, to Jay, “For the mermaid.”
Jay reaches out, but Ginger leans away. Nothing is certain yet. Needing more from him.
Helen puts her hands over her face. “Go ahead. I’m not watching.”
Common knowledge among behavioral biology fanboys like Vaughn, according to Vaughn: in a wide range of mammals, including monkeys, bears, cats, dogs, and, yes, mice, mothers are incredibly protective when their offspring are young and vulnerable. As part of this behavior, female mice will attack any threat against their offspring in what is variously called maternal aggression or maternal defense, depending on the researcher and the experiment.
Jay says, “It was you.”
A mother mouse will even kill the intruder to her nest if she thinks her pups are in danger.
Ginger says nothing. Her eyes search his.
“They wanted me to remember you,” he says.
Almost imperceptibly, Ginger nods. “Did you?”
Jay takes a moment before answering, mostly for show. The weight is gone. He remembers all that matters: his sister’s viral giggles, his brother’s sly wit, his father’s sure hands, his mother’s grace.
And the rest?
“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Jay says.
Ginger’s smile is everything.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish I could say I sat at the feet of famous scientists for all the mouse stuff, and spent a year on Catalina on a genius grant from some swanky foundation, living in a hut on the sea cliffs, writing with a pen made from California quail quill, but no, it just sprung out of my head, a jumble of experience, research, facts and fiction, that I wrestled to make sense of whenever I found the time; don’t trust any of it but believe it all. Thanks are overdue to Scott Shepherd, my longtime friend and sometime coconspirator, who has once again renovated and reinspired me. Benee Knauer deserves all the credit for pushing me to be a better, better, and better writer; also Victoria Sanders and Bernadette Baker-Baughman for their peerless guidance and support. David Rosenthal I thank for believing in me; Phoebe Pickering and everyone at Blue Rider Press for their hard work and collaboration. Julia Gibson and Aaron Lipstadt gave needed notes and encouragement on the earliest draft. Michael Convertino dug up more memory science than I knew what to do with, and my sister, Dr. Susan Pyne, helped me understand it. Susan Ruskin and Philip Seymour Hoffman saw in this story a movie that we nearly made and their thoughtful feedback as we pursued that dream had a subtle but profound impact on the novel.
And then there’s Joan, who is my rock and my muse, and Katie and Joe, who make it all worthwhile.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Pyne’s screenwriting credits include the remake of The Manchurian Candidate, Pacific Heights, and Fracture. He made his directorial debut with the indie cult film Where’s Marlowe? Pyne’s list of television credits (creating, writing, and showrunning) is vast and spans Miami Vice to Alcatraz. His two previous novels were Twentynine Palms and A Hole in the Ground Owned by a Liar. He lives in Southern California.