Near the end of the novel, the narrator describes entering the town of Caspar, California: A long time later we come to a town where a luminous haze which has seemed so natural over the ocean is now seen in the streets of the town, giving them a certain aura, a hazy sunny radiance that makes everything look nostalgic, as if remembered from years before.

After stopping for lunch, the narrator says, I look for a bench somewhere in the luminous haze but there is none. Instead we climb on the cycle and go slowly south looking for a restful place to pull off. The road leads out to the ocean again where it climbs to a high point that apparently juts out into the ocean but now is surrounded by banks of fog. For a moment I see a distant break in the fog where some people rest in the sand, but soon the fog rolls in and the people are obscured.

The fog opens for a moment, revealing the cliff they are on, then closes again, and a sense of inevitability about what is happening comes over him.

And so it is that the Father and Son confront their relationship.

"Why did you leave us?"

When?

"At the hospital!"

There was no choice. The police prevented it.

"Wouldn’t they let you out?"

No.

"Well then, why wouldn’t you open the door?"

What door?

"The glass door!"

A kind of slow electric shock passes through me. What glass door is he talking about?

"Don’t you remember?" he says. "We were standing on one side and you were on the other side and Mom was crying."

I’ve never told him about that dream. How could he know about that? Oh, no.

We’re in another dream. That’s why my voice sounds so strange.

I couldn’t open that door. They told me not to open it. I had to do everything they said.

"I thought you didn’t want to see us," Chris says. He looks down.

The looks of terror in his eyes all these years.

Now I see the door. It is in a hospital.

This is the last time I will see them. I am Phædrus, that is who I am, and they are going to destroy me for speaking the Truth.

It has all come together.

Chris cries softly now. Cries and cries and cries. The wind from the ocean blows through the tall stems of grass all around us and the fog begins to lift.

"Don’t cry, Chris. Crying is just for children."

After a long time I give him a rag to wipe his face with. We gather up our stuff and pack it on the motorcycle. Now the fog suddenly lifts and I see the sun on his face makes his expression open in a way I’ve never seen it before. He puts on his helmet, tightens the strap, then looks up.

"Were you really insane?"

Why should he ask that?

No!

Astonishment hits. But Chris’s eyes sparkle.

"I knew it," he says.