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Now get dressed and come back to the shed. I’ll make you breakfast.”
    Sleep and Melba’s tea healed my body on the inside, strengthening muscles and spirit. The cool river water lifted some of the dirt and sting from the cuts. All in all, I felt exhilarated and also motivated, but I was starving.
    “Don’t dawdle,” Melba called from halfway down the path.
    I pulled out a pair of heavy cotton trousers, blue like the too-small ones I wore, from inside the bag. I also found a white undershirt decorated with a large orange M and a bear’s head on the front, and the words Mercer University printed below; the garment fit loosely. The one other item was a gray jacket with a hood and no buttons, but two strips of silver running up the front, which I didn’t know how to fasten; although the device looked similar, but different, to the shorter fastener on the trousers Melba showed me how to use the previous night. When I was fully dressed in the baggy clothes, I felt sloppy, unkempt almost.
    Melba was nowhere in sight when I returned, but something different about the shed stuck out at me. A heavy line of red dust crossed the entrance. It hadn’t been there when I left for the river. I stepped over it, careful not to disturb whatever Melba had set up in my absence.
    Inside, I found three sacks filled with clothing and a pair of odd-looking shoes: blue with bright orange stripes and laces. The shoes fit perfectly over a pair of socks I found in another sack.
    When Melba arrived with breakfast, she nodded her approval at the attire she picked out for me. “Now you look like a college boy, and not some ghost of a romance novel model.” She held a finger to her chin. “A quarterback maybe. Yes, Solomon, the Quarterback. Although, your accent is heavy, even for these parts.”
    My accent? I thought she was the one with the accent.
    Melba watched me toy with the metal fastener on the jacket. “Here, let me show you how to do that.” With both sides in her hands she said, “It’s a zipper, the same as on your jeans… only the ends are different.”
    Melba fastened the zipper up to my neck, then backed it down again. “Now you try.”
    As I worked the zipper, grinning with triumph, worry lines etched Melba’s forehead.
    “Maybe you have amnesia,” she said, using a serious tone.
    “I don’t think so,” I answered, although I didn’t know why.
    Her brows knitted together. “No. You’re right. Your ailment goes much deeper than just memory loss.”

    The fried ham and eggs and toast quelled the hunger, and the orange juice and medicinal tea, which Melba called the hot spicy mixture this time, quenched the thirst. As I toyed with the zipper, pulling it up and down, Melba stared at me, looking amused.
    “You need a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste, too, and maybe a comb for that mane of yours.”

    The next couple of nights, I spent dreamless in the shed. Melba had given me a pillow to go with the blanket, and a toothbrush, toothpaste, and comb. She also insisted on trimming my “mane,” as she called it. Although I knew little about myself, I liked the feel of the long hair and allowed her to cut only the tips off, but in the end, she took off a lot more. Daytime, I spent in the yard, cleaning up fallen sticks and debris, weeding gardens, and moving a pile of boulders to the back end. Melba showed me how to start a lawnmower and mow the lawn, and to use a device called a Whipper Snipper. Surprisingly, I liked mowing the lawn. Excalibur wasn’t too happy about the noise, though, and retreated into the woods while the machines ran. The cops hadn’t returned, and Melba said the sewer line had been fixed, the road had been patched up, and the workmen moved out.
    On the eve of my fifth day at Melba’s, I was painting the outside of the shed creamy white, when she did something that surprised me. She invited me inside her house for supper. She said she cooked a roast dinner and wouldn’t mind the company.
    I