‘Hey, Klara. Why don’t you come down for a while to the bedroom. I mean, if you’re not busy, that is.’

So I descended with her and found myself once more in the old room. Many details had changed. Aside from Josie’s own bed, there was now a permanent second cot for her visitors, while the Button Couch had been removed altogether. Many smaller details had also changed – for instance, Josie was now sitting in a new desk chair with castors on its feet, so that if she wished, she could move about while still sitting. But the Sun’s patterns on the wall were just as I’d remembered them from the many afternoons we’d spent there together. I sat down on the edge of her bed, and for a while we talked happily.

‘Everyone you speak to says they’re not scared of college,’ Josie said at one point. ‘But you wouldn’t believe, Klara, just how scared some of them really are. I’m kind of scared too, I’m not going to pretend I’m not. But you know what? I’m not going to let fear get in my way. I’ve made myself a solemn promise about that. Hey, did I tell you this before? We’re all supposed to set these official targets. Two targets in each of five categories. I had to fill in a form about it, but I cheated, because I figured out my own secret targets, nothing to do with the ones on the form. Boy, would they not like my real list! And no way is Mom ever hearing about it either!’ She laughed cheerfully. ‘Even you, Klara. I’m not sharing my secret targets with you. But if you’re still here when I get back at Christmas, I’ll tell you how many I’ve got through.’

This was one of few allusions Josie made during this period to my own possible departure. And she referred to it again on the morning she finally drove away with the Mother.

She’d hoped, I knew, that Rick would come to wave her off. But as it turned out, he was many miles away that day, meeting his new friends to talk about his hard-to-detect data-gathering devices. So it was just myself and the New Housekeeper who stood in the loose stones area, watching Josie and the Mother place the last of her luggage in the Mother’s car.

Then, once the Mother was ready behind the wheel, Josie came back towards me, the caution that had never left her walk making her feet sink noisily into the pebbles with each step. She looked excited and strong, and before she’d reached me, held up her arms as though trying to form the largest Y she could. Then she held me in an embrace that lasted many moments. She’d become taller than me, so she had to crouch a little, resting her chin on my left shoulder, and her long, rich hair fell across a section of my vision. When she pulled away, she was smiling, but I could see also some sadness. That was when she said:

‘I guess you may not be here when I get back. You’ve been just great, Klara. You really have.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you for choosing me.’

‘No-brainer.’ Then she gave me a second hug, this one more brief, and stood back again. ‘Bye, Klara. You be good now.’

‘Goodbye, Josie.’

She waved cheerfully once more as she was getting into the car – the wave aimed at me rather than the New Housekeeper. Then the car moved away up the road, past the windy trees and over the hill, in just the way Josie and I had watched it do many times before.

* * *

—

Over the last few days, some of my memories have started to overlap in curious ways. For instance, the dark sky morning when the Sun saved Josie, the trip to Morgan’s Falls and the illuminated diner Mr Vance chose will come into my mind, merged together into a single setting. The Mother will be standing with her back to me, watching the mist from the waterfall. Yet I am not watching her from the wooden picnic bench, but instead from my booth in Mr Vance’s diner. And although Mr Vance isn’t visible, I can hear his unkind words coming from across the aisle. Meanwhile, above the Mother and the waterfall, the dark clouds have gathered, the same dark clouds that gathered the morning the Sun saved Josie, small cylinders and pyramids flying by in the wind.

I know this isn’t disorientation, because if I wish to, I can always distinguish one memory from another, and place each one back in its true context. Besides, even when such composite memories come into my mind, I remain conscious of their rough borders – such as might have been created by an impatient child tearing with her fingers instead of cutting with scissors – separating, say, the Mother at the waterfall and my diner booth. And if I looked closely at the dark clouds, I would notice they were not, in fact, quite in scale in relation to the Mother or the waterfall. Even so, such composite memories have sometimes filled my mind so vividly, I’ve forgotten for long moments that I am, in reality, sitting here in the Yard, on this hard ground.

The Yard is large, and from my special place here, the only tall object I can see is the construction crane in the far distance. The sky is very wide and open, and if Rick and I were once more crossing Mr McBain’s fields – especially now the grass has been cut – the sky might appear to us just like this. The wide sky means I’m able to watch the Sun’s journeys unimpeded, and even on cloudy days, I’m always aware of where he is above me.

I thought when I first came here that the Yard was untidy, but I’ve now come to appreciate its good order. The initial impression, I realized, was due to many of the objects here having in themselves an untidy identity – with the remains of severed cables protruding or with dented grille panels. On closer observation it becomes clear how hard the yardmen have worked to place each piece of machinery, crate or bundle into orderly rows, so that a visitor walking down the long passages that have been created in this way – even if that visitor must be careful not to trip on a rod or wire – will be able to take in the objects one by one.

Because of the wide sky and lack of tall objects, I become quickly aware of any visitors in the Yard. I spot their figures even if they are far in the distance and only small shapes moving among the rows. But visitors aren’t frequent, and when I hear human voices, they most often belong to the yardmen calling to each other.

Sometimes birds will come down from the sky, but they soon discover there is little in the Yard to interest them. Not long ago a group of dark birds descended in elegant formation to perch on some machinery not far in front of me, and I thought for a moment they might be Rick’s birds sent to observe me. Of course they weren’t Rick’s birds, but natural ones, and they remained calmly perched on the machinery for some time, not moving at all, even as the wind ruffled their coats. Then they flew off all at once.

Around the same time, a kind yardman stopped in front of me and told me there were three AFs on the South Side, and two in the Ring. If I wished, he said, he could transport me to one or the other of these areas. But I told him I was content with my special spot, and he nodded and went on his way.

Several days ago, there was a very special incident.

Although I’m not able to move from place to place, I can turn my head easily to see everything around me. So I’d been aware for some time of the long-coated visitor moving behind me. Once, when I turned, the figure was in the mid-distance, and I saw it was that of a woman, and that she was wearing at the end of a strap a pouch-like bag. Whenever she leaned forward to examine an item on the ground, the bag would swing before her. Because she was behind me, I couldn’t keep close watch on her, and then for a while – perhaps another memory had presented itself – I stopped thinking about her altogether. Then I heard a sound and the long-coated visitor was standing there before me. And even before she crouched down to look at my face, I recognized Manager, and happiness filled my mind.