“Could you tell me where he’s buried? I’d like to visit his grave.”
“In a cemetery in Tiburon. Can I ask who’s calling?”
“Someone who knew him,” Hope replied. “Someone who loved him very much.”
“Are you one of his former patients?”
“No, although I was at one point. One day, I’ll come visit you, and I’ll explain everything. Goodbye, Amelia.”
Hope hung up. The doctor’s widow spent the entire day wondering who the mystery caller had been. Someone who didn’t know her husband had passed, but knew his first name—and hers.
25
Simon was back from his tour. Hope had been searching through the ads, looking for an apartment she could afford. Sam had deposited a small amount of money into an account in Hope’s name at Longview, just in case. And over forty years, the principal had earned a fair amount of interest.
Luke had arranged to have her money wired to her. He had also used his connections to get her a job at the campus library while she decided what to do with the rest of her new life.
Simon finally managed to convince her to stay on at his apartment. She was doing him a favor, not the other way around, he said. She was looking after his place during his long stretches out of town. His plants, which the concierge never watered, had never looked greener than since she had moved in. They appreciated Hope too.
Simon was back in town for a week and contributed his time to helping her research, spending hours on Externet mining social media networks in an attempt to track down a Josh who might fit the description of the man Hope loved.
A few false starts got their pulses racing, but then new information came to light that shattered their hopes.
Simon flew out of town, and they continued to text.
Three months had gone by since her trip to Nantucket. Hope spent all her time searching for Josh. She had put ads out online, in all the science magazines. She had even stapled flyers to the walls of the cafés in the neighborhood where they used to live, returning to the scene of the crime, just as Simon had advised.
One night, the concierge called her to say that a woman asking to see her was waiting for her in the hall.
“Who is she?” Hope asked.
“An older woman,” the concierge whispered down the line. “She looks Asian.”
Hope rushed out onto the landing, giving Kasuko the fright of her life as she stepped out of the elevator. She stared at Hope, disbelieving.
“This is so unfair,” Kasuko laughed, taking her old friend in her arms.
Hope waved her through the front door and made her a cup of tea.
Kasuko settled down on the couch, her eyes locked on Hope’s new face.
“No wonder I had trouble tracking you down,” she said finally.
“I should have been the one to track you down. I hadn’t expected you to have stayed on in Boston. It’s hard for me to think things through; so much has happened in just a few months . . .”
“I know.” Kasuko smiled.
“How did you find me?”
“Luke finally told me the truth. I’d been asking him questions about you ever since you woke up at the Center. Almost every day. Lately, I’d sensed he was lying to me, and I threatened to leave him if he refused to tell me the truth,” Kasuko explained. “So he admitted to me that Patient one hundred and two had finally recovered her memory. And that the memory was yours. He told me about the money your father had left for you, and the job he got you in the library. So that’s where I went. And it led me here. Seriously, Hope?” She leaned in. “The campus library? With your science background and academic record?”
“I’m worried my knowledge might be a little rusty. Being paid to be around all those books . . . That’s not a bad deal. Although to be honest, I haven’t opened a single one of them yet,” Hope admitted. “I spend all my free time looking for Josh. Did you know about that too?”
“No.” Kasuko shook her head. “The only thing I knew is that Neurolink took control of the consciousness transfer for Patient one hundred and two. The operator detected an anomaly, which led me to hope that . . .”
“That what?”
“That you might come back. Luke tried to interrupt the procedure, but I managed to change the access codes before he did. At any rate, I don’t think Neurolink would have let him do that. Flinch had embedded the deal in his program source code.”
“Why would Luke have tried to interrupt the procedure? And what deal?”
“It’s a long story, Hope. I came here to tell you everything. It’s not just about you. It’s about Josh too.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Yes and no. It’s complicated.”
“Is he living a new life? As long as he’s happy—”
“Be quiet, Hope,” Kasuko interrupted. “Let me speak. It’s difficult enough as it is. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Start with him. That’s all I care about.”
“Josh never got over being separated from you, not after you died, and not even before, come to think of it,” she began. “He had hatched an impressive, and somewhat insane plan, well before you died. He started putting it in motion, keeping it a secret from everyone, including you, me, and Luke. Remember when the two of you came back from Nantucket with the idea of mapping your brain? Josh was giving up his spot in the chair for you. He’d spent months in it, and his memory had almost entirely been recorded. The day after your death, he went back to the Center. Luke and I were amazed to see him as strong as he was.
“Sure, he was grieving. But he was still there, still fighting, and we admired how brave he was. It turns out, he had us all fooled. When he had finished saving
