But if the whole business of being in the simulation had been a dream, how could it have included a distant memory of reading a message from Judy Klein that he had seen for the first time only a few minutes ago, after he got up? Obviously, the only answer could be that it hadn’t been the first time. He must have got up sometime in the middle of the night, checked the mail at that time for whatever reason—and then gone back to bed and forgotten about it. Except that he hadn’t quite forgotten it, and his mind had woven it into the dream. That was it. That was how it must have happened. He nodded to himself as he took his first swig of coffee, feeling relieved and unburdened inside now that he had straightened it out.
He washed, shaved, and dressed, and in the process decided that he would eat breakfast out, on the way to Xylog somewhere. It was a pity about Lilly, though. He could have gotten along well with Lilly, he told himself. It seemed that in the process of creating her, his subconscious had fashioned an ideal woman. He was going to miss having her around, even if they did argue a lot. It was funny how somebody could feel that way about a creation in a dream.
And then, as he fastened his tie and put on his jacket, he thought about Evelyn. Again, as if he were really reaching back over years, he remembered distantly how he had acted, and all of a sudden it made him feel shabby. He no longer felt any of the anger or resentment that had raged so violently in him only a week or two before. He could understand how she felt, see the bitterness he had caused, feel her hurt. And God, she had tried. . . . Why had he been so incapable of seeing all this before? Could a dream bring about such changes?
Before leaving, he went back to the den and retrieved Judy’s message again in order to call Ed Meechum. But then he realized that he had no idea what the figures from F & F were all about. He would have to wait until he got to the office and reminded himself, he decided.
Chapter Thirty-two
For a dream, it was having the strangest effects. In it, he had not driven a car at all during his recovery and rehabilitation process, and later his therapists had discouraged him from acquiring one. By that time he had become used to not owning a vehicle, and living close to the city in Oakland had given no cause for change. But now, on the way in from Fox Chapel in his Mercedes, he felt as if he really hadn’t driven for years. He was clumsy on lane changes, getting blared at a couple of times, and found himself uncertain about what should have been a familiar route that he had been taking every day since the move from Blawnox to Southside. Coming in on Route 28, he forgot that he had to exit onto East Ohio Street to get to 279 South, and instead carried on over the Veterans Bridge into the crosstown tangle, where he took a wrong ramp again and ended up in the early-morning downtown pileup, from which it took him fifteen minutes to extricate himself. The main problem was that the city he still remembered himself as living in for the past twelve years had changed more than he’d realized, and he had difficulty recalling the real one. However, he did remember his reserved parking slot at Xylog, found it, and after leaving his car, went up to the sixth floor.
“Good morning, Mr. Corrigan,” the receptionist greeted, smiling, as he came through the glass divider from the elevator hall on the sixth floor.
“Good morning . . .” He couldn’t remember her name. Nodding an awkward smile, he went on toward his office. Judy was at her post outside, looking relaxed but professional as usual.
“Good morning, Joe. I thought you said you’d be in first thing today. I was here extra early.”
“Oh, yes. . . . Sorry about that. I got stuck in traffic.”