It was funny: that I should have thought earlier on the fact that we could never go home—for when I awakened (or at least partially awakened), blinking my eyes and watching the curtains rustle, smelling the sweet lilacs in the Garden of Oz, well, I realized I had done just that.
Gone home.
“That’s it, Miles,” coaxed my mother, softly, encouragingly, urgently. “We need you to wake up; okay? Need you here, and present—and alert. Come on, honey.”
I rolled to face her and found her sitting on the bed next to me—pensively, I thought; broodingly, her hair having fallen partly over her face. “I can smell lilacs,” I said, and sniffed at the air. “But it’s already late July.”
She swiped the hair out of her eyes and regarded me. “And do you like it? The way their smell just sort of permeates the
