The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer Page B

Felix.
    “T ELL G REEN I’ M coming over for her chicken pot pie,” my brother said, sitting beside me and bumming a drag from my cigarette. I had already held him for a minute, and at last released him, seeing the baffled expression on his face.
    All I could do was say, as always, “I missed you.”
    “I’m kidding, kiddo! I know, no visitors. Green would shoot me.” He laughed, this third version of my brother. Dressed so unlike himself, in a baggy brown suit and tie, with a knot as big as a peach, and a dented fedora on the back of his head. His red hair was combed with pomade, and his classic nose was marred by a small cut. The mustache was gone, but the few freckles were there; the bright blue eyes were also there, some of their mischief diluted in the gray light of the day.
    “Why no visitors?”
    “Doctor’s orders,” he said.
    “My old friend Dr. Cerletti,” I said. I noticed the wedding ring on his hand. I stared at it for a long strange moment. Felix Wells, married man.
    “If you say so.” A radio from a parked car played brash swing music and the wind carried a woman’s laugh to us. He shook his head: “The tourists are ruining everything.”
    “How’s Ingrid?” I asked boldly.
    “Ingrid? Busy with the baby. Busy with me; I’m a poor husband.” Another laugh.
    “The baby,” I repeated. The sky above us opened its coat and flashed a patch of blue, showed the shape of its clouds.
    “I came to check on you, bubs.” His voice was softer now, which in Felix meant he was not kidding, kiddo. I felt a warmth of recognition; he kept giving me the things I missed, the things I’d lost.
    “What did the doctor say? They didn’t tell me.”
    “The doctor? That you’d healed but were . . .” His whole face crinkled in worry. “Well, that you’d been very sad and were getting . . . help. A procedure. I wish you’d told me, bubs.” He reached over to take another drag, closing his eyes, and I heard the tobacco smolder in its minor fire.
    “I don’t remember,” I said. “I don’t remember anything. What happened to me?”
    His eyes went from me, to my son, to the woman sitting across the way watching us. Then returned to me with that look I knew so well. The crackling music played from the car window, where the driver drummed his fingers. What was the thing that everybody knew? “Are you all right, baby?”
    Where was my ally in this particular dream? Where was Ruth? “Felix, I need your help.”
    “What did they do to you?”
    “What happened? There was an accident.”
    “We don’t have to—”
    “Jesus, just tell me, they won’t tell me.”
    He looked at me with the intense pain of someone watching something burn to the ground. I suppose it was watching his sister, who had always been stable, normal, ordinary, and good, fall apart in front of him.
    “There was a car accident, you and Ruth. It wasn’t your fault. You were badly hurt and shaken . . .”
    “Where is Ruth?” I asked him.
    We sat there on the bench, each regarding the other with such pity and envy, the way that siblings do. “Greta,” he began.
    “She died, didn’t she? In the accident,” I said. “She’s dead.”
    He nodded slowly. Golden leaves turned in the wind around us.
    “Oh, Ruth,” I said, letting my head fall into my hands. I felt the tears starting and I let myself sob a few times; I felt my brother’s hand on my back. That was when I felt it again: the sensation that I was not merely visiting these worlds. For I felt her death keenly, though I could picture her in turban and beads, alive in other worlds. I wept and wept into my white gloves. I was not borrowing these other Gretas; I was becoming them.
    “I’m so sorry, Greta. I thought you remembered.”
    “No, no,” I said. “Oh God. And I need her here so much. Poor Ruth. What am I going to tell—” But here I stopped myself.
    “That’s why Nathan found a doctor. You fell apart, Greta.” He leaned over and put his hand on my