of the perfect goblets on the table in the library. And then how bare and dirty the table looked, under its dustcover. The look of the water flowing out of the tap into the clean sink in the bathroom, and then the dirty dry sink with taps that didn't work.
"Tin, please let me call you that, please, let me come back and be your wife the way I should be. The way we promised before God that we would."
"You didn't want any cameras at our wedding, Mad," he said. "Why was that?"
She was toying with his hair. "I wanted to imagine that I was the perfect bride, beautiful as snow in sunlight." Her words were simple, and her voice was like low music. Her hand touched his skin, the same touch that had wakened him a few minutes ago and it was awakening him again. "I didn't want to see pictures that might contradict my dream. Do you believe all those Kodak ads? That nothing is real unless you have a picture of it to prove it to yourself? Maybe I should be giving you a Hallmark card right now, or calling you on AT&T so we can have a really touching moment."
He laughed. It was Madeleine, it was the woman he loved. The sound of her voice, the feel of her hair under his fingers.
Her hair.
And now suddenly her hair was sticky with orange juice. But a moment ago it hadn't been. His hand froze in place.
She looked into his eyes. "What?" she said. "What?"
He turned his face away. He thought of Lizzy. He thought of the false image of her, walking up to the townhouse that was rented to nobody.
He pushed her away and walked to the wall where the glass had fallen. He bent down and picked up a shard of glass and drew it along the wall. A scratch appeared in the wallpaper. Suddenly, without planning it, without knowing he was going to do it until he did, he jabbed the glass into the skin of his abdomen. Jabbed twice, three times. Only then did the pain come. He doubled over, it was so bad. Fell to one knee. But he knew it was a lie. He looked down at his belly. Blood was coming out, but there wasn't enough of it.
And then, suddenly, there was more. Too much. He hadn't hit an artery. There wasn't anything there that could bleed so much. In fact, he knew that there was no wound there to bleed. Nothing. No reason for pain. There wasn't even a piece of glass in his hand.
He still held the shard in his fingers.
Hadn't Lizzy told him he was stronger than most people? Why couldn't he fight off these illusions of hers?
On one knee, he sliced through the skin of the other. Sliced deeper and deeper. The glass cut deep. But all he could think of, all he let himself think of, was dissecting a frog in science class. The musculature of the leg when he peeled back the formaldehyde-soaked skin. And for the moment he thought of that, his leg was also a frog's leg. He peeled the skin off just as he had the frog's leg.
"No!" cried Madeleine.
There was no wound in his leg at all. No shard of glass in his hand. No stab wound in his belly. The orange juice glass lay on the floor where he must have dropped it when Madeleine made him think she had taken it out of his hand.
On all fours, he moved to the spot where she had been standing when he poured the orange juice over her head. There it was, a single puddle, spattered, but only one stream of juice had fallen, uninterrupted by a human body. He had recovered reality.
Which meant that he had lost her again.
"Madeleine," he whispered.
From the couch, her voice sounded cold and angry. "I'm still here."
He recoiled, fell back onto the carpet, looked at her. She was on the couch primping her hair, looking into a small vanity mirror. "So your dead sister told you that you were strong," said Madeleine. "Bully for you."
"Who are you really?" he said. "Just be honest with me, can't you? Who are you and why did you pick me?"
"I'm Madeleine Cryer Fears," she said. "I'm your wife."
"You don't exist and you never did."
"Oh? Then who have you been making love to in beds all over America?"
"A lie," he said. "I've been loving a lie."
"Wrong answer, Quentin," she said. "I am