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September 2021—Saratoga Springs, New York
Gil had been back in Saratoga for a couple of weeks. Karen said she’d call him when she needed him again. He was in for another session with Dr. Manomoney, who was looking at his sleep log. “You were doing much better, but it seems like the past couple of weeks have been more difficult. What’s going on?”
“I started to have nightmares again. Sometimes they’re the worst I’ve ever had. I probably need to go see Dr. Lipton again.”
“Let’s make that happen as soon as possible. Remember, good sleep is about establishing a pattern of good sleep behaviors. We don’t want these nightmares to root themselves in your sleep pattern again.”
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Dr. Lipton couldn’t take him for two weeks. In the meantime, Gil was back at pickleball, frustrated with his serves. One of the experienced players, who looked to be about eighty, asked him if he’d like some help. Gil told the guy about his motorcycle accident and recovery. The guy gave him some tips on how to get his serve back. “Don’t toss the ball up to serve,” he said. “Just let it drop as your paddle is coming up.” Gil followed his advice, and pretty soon he was serving in bounds, most of the time. After the last game of the day, the pickleball organizers debated whether to move the game indoors to the YMCA. They decided that, due to COVID, they would keep playing outside until the weather got too cold or snowy. Gil decided that he wouldn’t play indoors until there was very little COVID around. He wouldn’t feel comfortable playing pickleball wearing a mask.
When he checked his phone, he had a text from Karen: “Call me.” He gave her a buzz.
“We got DNA results from the cave,” she said. “We have DNA from four other family members.”
“Four?”
“A male, two females who are the children of the male, and another child which was also conceived incestuously by the father and one of the daughters. The lab also picked up our DNA and the DNA of quite a few other unknown people. They also got DNA from a variety of animals, unsurprisingly. The UMass team separated the DNA in time by dating the layers of soil. They dated the surface layers for us, including the child’s grave, which was about a foot and a half deep. They went even deeper for their own research into Indigenous peoples and extinct animal DNA. They’ll be analyzing those samples for a while. They said people were living in this area when the glaciers receded around fourteen thousand years ago.”
“Wow, fourteen thousand years! I had no idea. So what do we do next?”
“Lili’s going to work with a forensic genealogist to see if we can find some family members. Maybe that’ll give us some leads.”
“This is really cool. Let me know when you want me to come back.”
“It may be a while,” said Karen. “I’ve got those arsons going on, and if they’re related to our case, I don’t want to put you in harm’s way again. We’re up to four arsons now. One a month.”