What was more fun than lusty sex in the back of a van? It conjured the frantic fumbling of teenagers needing secret spaces. Not to mention the romance of a misting slender waterfall outside, cascading down from a mountaintop in this secret place he’d known about. A green jungle dripping with rain. A sunset sending shafts of light through distant clouds.

Her three orgasms were fed by the sensation she was getting away with something, getting away from the boringness of sex-in-beds, of middle-life routine, of old patterns. Fed by the energy of them both getting something too long withheld. Both obviously hungry—there was no other word for it. And for her, of having the first new body naked next to her in decades. And his lovemaking! Different. Attentive. But not in a ridiculous formal and serious and silent way, but rather punctuated by humor and laughing and complaints about a cramp in his leg and the other atrocities of getting older. She hadn’t felt so much pleasure in bed for…Well, she couldn’t remember; she didn’t have time to remember.

For the first go-round, her brain was still yakking away, wondering if this was wise or not, worrying, worrying, trying to deal with the zillions of things that surely zip across most people’s brains at such moments, if the truth were told, but finally, finally, finally, it went silent. Her body reigned. Her mind went as quiet as the sky, interrupted by only small twinkles of thoughts.

They rested, snuggled, napped, commented on the stars, kissed and talked more, made love again. Richard was dozing and she was staring out the window at the moon, her hands between her legs to better feel the swollen pleasure, when her brain registered one clear thought: Finally.

Her life had been rife with incomplete and unfulfilled touch. Levi in her dreams. Kit and Dan’s kisses. Even the somewhat disconnected and distracted sex of the later years of her marriage. What she had needed was rolling around and laughing and gasping and gentle bites and serious glorious fucking. Finally, finally, finally.

Her body was chilled with cooling sweat and she was coming back into the challenges of reality. She’d have to think this through—but later. Not while resting, not on the drive home, not when he pulled up at the base of the driveway.

“I’ll walk you up,” he said.

She shook her head no. “I’d like to go the rest of the way, if you don’t mind.” He opened his mouth as if to say something, but she interrupted. “How about we’ll clarify all this later? This is perfect as is, let’s let it be.”

He nodded, handed her a scrap of napkin with his number. As she was walking away, she looked in the window at him. “That was deeply human, deeply amazing, you know.”

He nodded his assent, and his smile was that of someone human and kind and relieved to have been seen, and to have seen someone else. She felt the same way. She turned to hike up the mountain toward her little shack of a home, moonlight and headlamp guiding her way.

—

First light woke her. She pulled on clothes, grabbed her day pack, and was out the door into the dull light of a new day. Something Richard had said triggered a suspicion. Last week, when she’d gone to swim in the pure lake that Aroha had told her about, she’d hiked until the thin path disappeared into the jungle. Conveniently, this is when her lungs wore out too. As in Colorado and Arizona, she’d wanted to do one hike that pushed her to her max, and as she stood there catching her breath, she’d noticed some light pink plastic ties circling the base of trees. She had assumed it was the work of some previous artist, the remnants of some installation of some sort, but in the middle of the night, she’d startled awake: The pink ribbons had not been battered or old or faded.

Why pink ties? Why new?

The hike was easier this time, perhaps because she was clear on her purpose. She stood, panting, above the lake and very far above the sea, in a swath of pink plastic ribbons floating on the breeze. Not an art project. She had only assumed that because that was what was in her purview. Now another idea had been introduced; her worldview had been widened.

Oh. Oh, oh, oh.

She had her phone out and was taking a lot of photos, including one that showed the pure lake downslope in the distance, so that the location could be gauged. Then, for the first time since being in New Zealand, she took her phone off airplane mode. She breathed in deeply and texted the photos to the number Richard had given her with a hopeful look. But this was not the type of communication he’d hoped for. Now everything would change. She knew this. Now she needed to leave. She’d crossed some invisible line into becoming visible. But she also knew now that she’d proven herself to herself that day of leaving water. She’d proven herself to community during the snowstorm. Now she was proving her selflessness. “Once you find yourself, it’s your obligation to lose yourself,” she said to no one, watching the pink ribbons flap.

—

When rain started lashing down from the sky upon her return, she hardly noticed. Did not really register, even, the faraway siren going off, signaling some accident. She packed her bags and tidied the place—she’d leave first thing in the morning, or perhaps even today, if the rain let up. It was only because of a change in the light—a streak of lightning?—that she stopped, startled. The image of the doe in the forest flashed into her mind—a creature on alert, ears raised, nostrils flared, body ready to run. She moved to look out the window, curious now to see what was sounding like an explosive storm.

She felt her eyebrows quirk. Oh, oh, oh.

In the flash of lightning, she could see two dark figures, heads bent against the onslaught as they trudged up the path, which was now more like a stream. One smaller and one larger. Then it went dark again. Then they were lit again. Dark, light, dark. The larger one slipped and the smaller helped him up and they paused for a moment, turning to look back down the hill, presumably where they’d parked. The rain was coming down in fierce sheets now. As they stood, uncertain, Ammalie did the same at the window, willing them to turn back. Surely, they were wondering if they could simply come back another time. Why walk in such a storm?

As they turned and resumed their hike toward her, she ducked away from the window. Exhaled in the quietest breath of her life. Here it was. Her eyes went to her backpack and duffel and shopping bag, sitting in a tidy bundle by the front door. Complete, ready to go.

The moment is now, Ammalie.

She turned to face the sliding glass door, all that green lush behind, the beach and ocean and path to freedom. Her escape route clear, rehearsed. But she’d made one mistake—she’d assumed access to the front door. They’d be there too soon. She bit her lip and considered her options.

The sliding glass door? The jump from the deck to the ground seemed so far. It was possible, even, that bones could be broken.

The living room window? Probably just on the verge of too small.

The bathroom? No, what good would locking herself inside do?

Hide in a closet? It had worked in Colorado! After all, people couldn’t just break into people’s homes, though, true, there was no working lock, there had never been a working lock. It was rusted away.

Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn?

Or face it?

Her eyes went again to the sliding glass door and the deck outside, hanging over the forest. Yes, that was best. A loud rapping sounded from the front door. She stood equidistant between the two doors and wondered in which direction her body would instinctually move. She even looked down at her hips, waiting for them to start some initial movement. Which is when the thought struck her: I am a person of interest. I am. a. person. of. interest.

An exhale of giddy delight escaped her lips. She had come so far. So very far. At the same time, the gravity of the situation registered. After this moment, everything would be different, no matter what she did next. So she closed her eyes to focus on her breath and to make a decision. She heard the crashing waves of the Tasman Sea, she heard the wind shift, the rain smack windows.

She picked up her bags. Put the backpack on her shoulders, a duffel in one hand, a shopping bag in the other. Then she put them back down. Right where they’d been, by the door.

She felt her resolve in her spine, and stood straight and strong. She felt the resolve in her gaze, steady and ready. She could still feel the play of a smile at the corner of her mouth. She knew now what she’d do. “Just a moment, please,” she yelled in the direction of the front door. “I need a drink of water.”

When she opened the door with one hand, holding the glass of water with the other, they looked nearly as surprised as she was. As she had suspected, it was not Richard and some friend, though she’d held out hope. It was the police, a man and a woman. The man looked past her, as if to ascertain that she was alone, sitting in the dark, and then, after some rustling and flipping of raincoats, they each produced a badge. “We’re trying to clear something up. Can you tell us your name, please?”

The question seemed to ricochet back and forth between them for several seconds, and meanwhile, the officers stepped, uninvited, into the home to get out of the rain. They stood just inside the door, drenched and dripping, the wind and rain whipping in until the woman turned around and, with some effort, shut the door, then leaned against it with a sigh of relief that reminded Ammalie of her own struggle to shut the door in the snowstorm of Arizona.

“Oh, hullo, cheers,” Ammalie said, and then in a quiet, trailing-off voice added, “I’m an artist. And I assume you are the police!” She took a long drink of water. Swallowed. Stood even straighter. “Ammalie Brinks.”

“And where are you from?”

“Chicago.”

“And you’re here on a visitor visa?”

“Yes.”

“May we see that visa and your passport?”

“Of course.” She went to her bags. So packed. So ready. Something she’d done every night, whether or not she’d wanted to, because that was called discipline. To be ready to go. She started unzipping and zipping things, pretended to look, though she knew exactly where her papers were. Zip, unzip, zip. She needed time to think, and they needed time to pant and recover themselves. Her eyes went to the back deck—the rickety dick, she could still hear Aroha calling it—but no. She probably could manage to rush past the police—they wouldn’t be expecting it—and run into the bush, but evading the police was a whole different matter altogether. Plus, they knew the bush and tracks much better than she ever could—this was their home. Their real home.

Finally, because she was out of time, she stood. Though the man had his dripping arm outstretched and was reaching for the papers, she handed them to the woman. Her fingers wouldn’t let go of them—of their own accord, they clutched, until the woman gave a sharp tug.

“Shackleton,” she said.

“Excuse me?” The woman huffed at her.

“You win,” Ammalie said, but not to the woman. To the universe. To her life. To herself. Then she added, “I did it,” and she meant it.

Yes, she had taken over someone else’s identity. But it was to form one of her own!

Yes, she had believed the best thing to do was to run from her life, but it was to find a place to stop.

She wanted to explain it all, but that was too complicated, so she stood quietly in the very long silence as the police examined her passport and the man went into the bedroom and was presumably looking around as he called something in. The woman stood in front of her, blocking the front door, arms crossed.

Now it strangely seemed as if Ammalie had all of time to think. Her last few months had been filled with lies, but it was so she could discover some truths. She had found freedom, and now she was about to go to jail. Out of nervousness or release or giddy joy, she didn’t know, she started to laugh. She turned to get her things, which now both officers were indicating she should do with nods of their heads. The laughter bloomed out of her mouth, like butterflies. She was not invisible after all.