she has short brown hair, she's wearing a thick scarf around her neck, she appears to be smiling about something but she doesn't make eye contact with him, she's wearing jeans, valentin doesn't remember trudie ever wearing jeans—the small black dog catches valentin's eyes, it stiffens on alert, and holds his gaze—valentin looks to the ground hoping that the dog doesn't bark, to avoid calling the woman's attention, not yet anyway, until he decides whether to say something—trudie is 8 years older than him, she married once to a neighbor down the block from their childhood home whom she knew from high school but didn't start dating until afterwards, but the match wasn't right, she liked to go out drinking every other night while her husband preferred to stay home, have a nice meal, and read or watch some tv, so after a couple of years her husband convinced himself he'd taken a wrong turn in life and decided to attend college full-time to study agriculture science, by no means the kind of life that interested trudie and her husband knew it, and so they divorced—trudie restarted by moving to new jersey, picking up a job at a call center for tax services, where she made a number of friends who after work joined her at the bar almost daily—valentin visited her a couple of times at her new jersey home, once valentin met her friends at the bar, he spent much of the time with one of the women whom they called sweet jane, because her real name was more difficult to pronounce—jane told him that she and trudie would sometimes after the bar go on a run together, maybe 3 or 4 miles, the alcohol somehow would fuel them, both struggled with sleeping, and running burned off the excess energy—trudie often skipped the bars on the weekends, instead she'd watch movies with a bottle of wine, valentin saw a couple movies with her the beautiful troublemaker and boyhood, and she spoke little about her brief marriage and a lot about the craziness of the people who called her in her new job, lonely people, complaining about the government, reports of unidentified flying objects—their parents seemed to think that she moved to new jersey to drink herself to despair and loneliness and worse, but valentin doubted it, sometimes people just need to start life over again, and that was her way—but valentin isn't sure whether this woman walking her dog is trudie, when he closes in enough to where the woman likely will notice that she's his target, he asks her for the directions to the address, whether he's on the right street and going the right direction—but once the dog hears his voice, it launches into berserk barking, hopping and spinning, and the woman yanks on the leash, then with her foot pushes or outright kicks the dog, which throws the dog off balance, and now instead of spinning the dog rolls and yelps while barking, a violent combination, and the woman shakes her head—frustrated with her dog and fearing valentin, she yanks at the leash and readies herself to turn and walk away—but valentin trying to control his voice in order to not sound threatening simply says no, which calms the dog down a bit and catches the woman's attention, and valentin continues, please don't go, i have a question—the scarf is covering half her face, she's partially turned away from him anyway, he wants to see her clearly to know—valentin says, trudie?—the woman doesn't dismiss him, but nor does she react, she freezes—valentin says, i'm looking for trudie eko, do you know if she lives on this block? i have an address, or her father navin eko or her mother malin alba—the woman says, oh well, my god—and she turns and quickly walks, the dog pulls her on the leash as if helping her escape—valentin wants to chase her down and insist that she clarify her odd answer, he sparked a reaction, she knows something, the name trudie, or it's her, or it's something, he didn't make this trip for half answers—he slowly follows her, her pace creates more distance, but he gives her that distance as long as he can see where she's going, she's walking her dog so she can't be far from home, he only wants to see which house she enters—she has no turns to make to shake him off, it's a direct route to her house, she walks up to her porch and without looking back she just about kicks the dog through the door and enters her house—valentin pounds the door and yells, i just need a few minutes to talk—his noise travels across the neighborhood, he stops to listen for any reaction, nothing, he's done enough, he turns to sit on the steps of the porch, his knuckles pulsating, expecting a police car to show up, no plan on how to deal with that—he hears voices behind the door, it never occurred to him that she might be living with someone else, just trudie or maybe not, alone with her dog—the door whiffs open, it's a man in jeans and a white undershirt, he's young maybe 25 and he's ready to launch a spray of anger on him—valentin says, i'm sorry i don't mean to scare anyone, i'm just looking for trudie eko, is she trudie? i've come from a long way just to find that out, to find out if anyone in my family is here—the man says, we know her, but she's not here, who are you?—the woman appears from behind the man's back, inspecting him—she says, she's been here, she used to live here, for a few years, but she never mentioned any brother—valentin starts toward the woman, the man readies to push him, and valentin holds out his hands in a gesture of peace, he feels tears coming, he says, i don't mean to scare you, but you might be my only connection—