At the front door I took my keys from my pocket and slipped the right one carefully into the lock. With infinite caution I turned it until I heard the ever so faint click of the lock opening. Then I opened the door, inch by inch.
I recognized the living room where my first memory of events had begun. It was deserted. In another part of the house a radio was going, playing soft music. A woman's voice, singing, came to my ears. It wasn't on the radio. It was off key and untrained.
I took out the gun and made sure the safety catch was off. I pulled the loading mechanism back far enough to make sure a bullet was in the chamber. With the gun in my hand, I crossed to a door. I hesitated briefly, then twisted the knob and gave the door a light push that made it swing open wide.
The singing stopped. I saw her across the room, sitting before a large mirror. And she saw me in the mirror. She saw the gun, too.
"No, Orville!" she said. Her hand went up to her mouth, but she didn't turn.
I lifted the gun and aimed carefully. Even as I pulled the trigger I tried desperately not to, and at the same time I sensed that the only reason I could try not to was because a part of Fred Martin was also trying to stop this killing.
I wasn't able to have a thought of my own. I was a chameleon, a freak aggregation of fragmentary thoughts from other people's minds, brought together in a temporal continuity held together by the concept, I.
Or was I?
Right now I was in the living room again. I had found pen and paper in a desk, and was writing. What I was writing was a confession for the murder of my wife. I read her name where I had written it. Thelma. It was weird to not have known her name until I read it after writing it.