This was, his therapist had told him, on hearing it described, an aftereffect of stress—excessive fear, excessive excitement—and he was there. That it was the sort of thing that a normal person could escape with the application of a single tablet of Ativan added a certain irony. But Milgrim’s recovery, he’d been taught, was dependent on strict abstinence from the substance of choice. Which was not the substance of choice, his therapist maintained, but the substance of need. And Milgrim knew that he’d never been content with a single tablet of anything. It was the very first single tablet, he told himself, rehearsing these teachings like a rosary, as he swung back out toward the false promise of sleep, that he was required not to ingest. The others were no problem, because, if he successfully avoided the first, there were no others. Except for that first one, which, in potential at least, was always there. Bump. He hit the random anxiety, saw those few sparks thrown off Foley’s car’s fenders as Aldous drove it back, through that narrow space.