The waitress cleared away our plates and poured Mr. Lane some more coffee. After she left, Mr. Lane picked up his story.

"For the space of four or five months, round about nineteen years ago, I had occasional business up in the Montana, Idaho, Spokane area. One night in Spokane, I met your mother. It was in a diner called The Happy Place. I don't know what she looks like now, but back then she was really something. Her hair is like yours: not as curly, but it's that same golden-red, and she's got the same quirky face you've got.

"She was... vivacious, curvaceous, a little crazy, flighty... definitely up for a little fun." He paused to gauge my reaction, which was neutral. For me, it was just a story. I didn't think of the woman as my mother, so I didn't really care. I understood that he felt he might step on some sensitive nerve about Dexie's feelings toward her birth-mother, but I didn't have those feelings.

Lane continued with his story.

"I'd say one thing led to another, but it didn't really. We fell right into the sack, without any preamble. And it was good. I won't say the best ever. Definitely not as good as Laurie, but—"

"Okay, I get the picture," I said, interrupting. "You had a bouncy bed in Spokane."

"Yes," he said. "Very bouncy. And afterward, she would always talk. The moment I'd lie back and relax, she'd start up. I often felt she was waiting for that moment. Usually I don't like talking after... well, after you-know-what. It puts me off, but...," he paused, feeling the memory as he spoke, "She had — maybe still has — the most beautiful voice. She could be on the radio. Imagine, if you're driving down the long, empty roads they got up there, and you hear that voice... It would be perfect. Even if she only read the traffic and weather, something in you would respond. You'd wonder Who is that woman? I want to know her. Her voice is low and throaty, but it's soft at the same time, and it just flows. Like honey. It's hypnotic. On the other hand, the things she'd talk about, the things she said, were... weird. Crazy. Out there. So far out there. At first I just listened to that low sexy voice. I'd close my eyes and let it wash over me. Sometimes it would get me going again, but more often than not it would carry me off to sleep. Then, one time, it was early in the day and I had lots of energy, so I decided to listen for a change. After that, I was hooked. I got fascinated by the things she said. It was all... just... so out there."

I was irritated by his vagueness. "What do you mean, out there? Out where? What was it, specifically?"

"She had all these ideas about what she called The Secret World: magic, spirits, life after death, séances, psychic powers, all that stuff. Of course, I didn't take any of it seriously. As I said — at first I tuned her out, but once I got caught up and started listening, I'll tell you, it was pretty entertaining. I mean, she believed. She believed in anything and everything. It seemed like she collected weird stories, and she treated them like parts of a single puzzle. It was an extremely complicated puzzle, and I think it was a lot bigger than she could hold in her head. Still, every time she encountered an idea that was out of the ordinary, she'd add it to her collection. For me, it was just a load of fairy tales and nonsense. In her mind, it was as real as rocks and trees. I'd laugh and laugh, but she didn't mind. She'd just keep going. She'd talk for hours until she ran out gas or I'd fall asleep... and none of it ever made a lick of sense. She'd weave this weird, complicated, tumbleweed tapestry of ideas. She'd connect Jesus with the Sphinx. She told me that Mata Hari came from the planet Venus, by way of Atlantis. She claimed that the whole Cuban Missile Crisis was a cover-up for a UFO crash in the Bay of Pigs. It was just... You know when people say You can't make this stuff up? Well, she could.

"You could take any conspiracy theory you know — the Kennedy Assassination, the Trilateral Commission, Pearl Harbor, Roswell — and she wouldn't just go you one better: she had a super-crazy cosmic conspiracy that tied all the others together. This hyper-meta-super-conspiracy of hers would make your everyday conspiracy theory sound like a practical joke by comparison. According to Lizzie, conspiracy theories were created intentionally by a much bigger conspiracy!"

"Which was what?" I asked.

"Damned if I know!" he laughed. "You know how sometimes you hear something explained, and you feel like you've got it, but afterward you can't put it together? You only understand it while the person is talking, but the moment they stop, it evaporates? Well, this stuff was like that, with one big difference: it didn't make any sense from the get-go. I don't know if it even made sense to her. I don't know if she'd notice something not making sense. For instance, she told me the conspiracy theories about the Kennedy Assassination all focused on the wrong thing, and that by missing the point, they added to the distraction."

"Distraction from what?" I asked.

He scoffed and shrugged.

"Don't think I didn't ask!" he replied. "Several times!"

He chuckled. "I have never taken a mind-altering drug," Lane told me, "but after spending time with her, I'm pretty sure I know what it would feel like. After a night of listening to her crazy stories, my brain would overload, and my head would spin like a top for an entire day." He shook his head at the memory. "I'll tell you: she could make you feel that your sanity, your sense of reality — everything you knew and believed to be true — was just like a tiny boat that you were sitting in, and the real reality, which is the world you can't see, surrounds you like a dark, boundless ocean. And then, once you got a sense of how big and unfathomable was this world you didn't know... why then, she'd show you that your boat wasn't real, either... and you'd be lost.

"She could make you doubt your own sanity. For a little while, anyway. She could make you wonder whether all this—" he waved his hand to take in the room and everything in it "—any of this—" he made a larger, then even larger, gesture to include the town, the world, everything "—exists at all. Maybe it's only a dream? And if it is a dream, who's dream is it? Is it my dream? Is it your dream? Is it someone else's dream?"

He paused and looked off in the distance. Evidently, recalling her storytelling powers had brought back that distant, otherworldly sense she used to create. You could see from his face that he was far, far away, sitting in his tiny disappearing boat.

I interrupted his reverie by asking, "And you liked that?"

"Liked what?" he asked.

"You enjoyed feeling that sense of unreality?" He really didn't seem the type.

He drew a deep breath and sat up straighter in his chair. "Well, it was a change from my usual routine," he admitted.

"In any case, it turned out that she was not actually the source of all that craziness. She was getting it all from someone else: her puppet-master, a man she called Benevolence. Once she started mentioning him, I quickly began to lose interest."

"In her, or in her stories?" I asked.

"Both," he said. "Laurie was beginning to suspect that something was up. At the same time, your birth-mother, Lizzie, saw she was losing her grip on me. So she suggested that I come visit the Ark, which was what her group called their headquarters."

"What group?" I asked.

"She was — and probably still is — in some kind of cult. This man Benevolence is their leader. He lives out in the middle of nowhere in a compound they call the Ark."

"You didn't go, did you?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, I did. Big mistake. BIG mistake. Longest six days of my life. And that's one of the things I wanted to warn you: when you meet Lizzie, no matter what she tells you, no matter what you feel for her, no matter what promises she makes, do NOT go to that place. Do not get into a car with her. Do not let anyone take you to her. Stay in Spokane if you like, but do not leave Spokane with her. That 'Ark' place is a trap. They will never let you out, and I don't think someone like you could break out on your own. For them, women are like cattle, and the ones like your mother are bait for men like me."

"Wait a minute," I protested. "Are you saying that she had sex with you to lure you into their cult? That's crazy!"

"It works, though," he said. "She made that place sound like a nonstop, no holds barred orgy, with piles of young, willing women. She painted quite a picture, and I figured that I might as well end the affair on an explosive high note. And, I'd never been to an orgy, so naturally I was curious.

"Of course, the reality was nothing like she said. There were women, yes — young, beautiful women. Things looked very promising, but it was only a promise. A promise they never intended to keep. There'd be reasons... delays... it was always going to happen tomorrow, but — you know what they say: tomorrow never comes. In the meantime, there was work to be done. Manual labor, to tire a body out. All I did was work like a mule and sleep like a dead man. Took me a couple of days to wise up. The moment I met Benevolence, I saw it was all a sham. The man's a charlatan, a liar, a thief, and a dog. But I smiled and shook his hand. I didn't let on that I knew, and that night, I broke out and made my way back to Spokane. If I wasn't a Marine and ready to crack a few heads... if I didn't know how to find my way by night, how hide and survive in the open, I'd still be there. They'd have caught me and dragged me back."

"No," I scoffed. "It's crazy!"

"All I can do is warn you," he said. "But if you go there, at least tell somebody—" he paused "—not me, I'm sorry, but tell somebody where you are. And make sure they are badass enough to bust you out when they don't hear from you.

"Obviously, it would be easier not to go in the first place." He took a bite of toast and swallowed it with some coffee. After a pause, he continued.

"I believe — and this is speculation on my part — but I believe it was Benevolence who told your mother to give you up. Ordered her, more like. Caring for you interfered with her work in town, attracting idiots like me."

I scoffed, more from reflex than anything else, when a thought suddenly struck me.

"You think that Benevolence is my father!"

"Yes, I do," he said. "And I would be willing to bet that that low-life also made babies with the other young women there. I'd say it's highly likely that you are not his only child. But again, that's just speculation on my part." He gave me a serious look, and said, "And closer to that same point, you might ask your mother, when you see her, if she has any other children. You may not be alone. You may have kin."