“We can do presents when we get back. We’ll bring a few, but we can have another Christmas when we get back. What do you think?”

Wilson nods. He turns to Jimmy. “We can drive you partway, then,” he says. “Put you on a train in New Haven or somewhere.”

“Yes,” Ruth says. “And then you won’t have to deal with getting to Grand Central and all that.”

Jimmy nods. “That’s good,” he says. “That’ll work out fine.”

III

He has cracked the window, as Ruth has asked; though it is still warm in the room, as he stands at his dresser he can already feel the cold air around his feet. He imagines it pouring in through the half-inch opening, pooling on the floor, rising all night like a cold tide under which, come morning, they will be fully submerged, the two of them huddled against each other underneath the blankets.

He scratches at his ankle with a bare toe. His toenail is sharp; he winces. He stares at Isabelle’s lion on his dresser, retrieved by Ruth from the shrink along with the sketchbook. Isabelle’s voice echoes through his head, calling him, Dad! At the time, he had wondered if it was a creation of his mind. There were things he knew he heard: Brian’s voice calling Isabelle’s name, her footsteps on the lobby floor, the squeal of her sneakers and the rattle of the chain that dangles from her backpack coming closer toward the elevator doors, the dull sound of her crashing, knees and elbows and nose against marble—and all of this punctuated by her calling out for him, he had thought, but wasn’t sure—wasn’t sure until they stood there at the back door and she’d cried out exactly what her mother would have: Fuck! And in that moment, whatever segment of life they’d been living for the past nine months had ended. He blinks. What he’s unsure of is what new segment they’ve begun. They don’t need Africa, he thinks. They don’t need shrinks. He thinks.

“Wil.”

Wilson looks over his shoulder. Ruth has turned out her bedside light, her head a dark shape against the pillow.

“You coming to bed?”

Wilson turns back to his dresser. “Yes,” he says. He folds the lion into fourths and tucks it into the drawer that holds his medicines, their passports.

Ruth throws back the covers on Wilson’s side of the bed. “Come,” she says.