“When?” she says.

“I don’t know.”

“What am I supposed to tell him then?”

“Tell him I’ll call him.”

“When?”

“I’m not sure.” Silence again. A high piercing shriek of a circling hawk. A Jeep roars past. A Jeep with no windows or doors, just the wind ripping across the wide-eyed face of the driver. “Are you still there?” he says to the phone.

“Where am I supposed to go?” she says.

“I don’t know.”

“Is this about her? Is that what this is? You’re going down there to be with her?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“What about her man? Isn’t she with someone too?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what about him? What’s she going to do?”

“She’s going to tell him, I guess.”

“She hasn’t told him yet?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know and you’re still going down there?”

“Yeah.”

“You know what this is for me, don’t you? I mean my history and everything—my father—”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Your father too.”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t think of that?”

“I did.”

“And Spence—” Her voice chokes. He stares down at his boots. He wants to feel something. He presses the heel of one boot down hard on the toe of the other. The sun cuts the back of his neck. “What is this going to do?” Her voice comes back and he can hear it’s taking everything she has. “What is this going to change? Changing women. Do you think that’s going to solve something; make something different?”

“I don’t know,” he says.

“I mean whatever it is that’s making you—that’s causing this thing in you—It’s inside you, isn’t it? Swapping women isn’t going to make that any different. That’s not going to solve anything.”

“No. Probably not.”

“It didn’t solve it when you changed over to me, did it?”

“No.”

“How many times have you done this and what’s it come to?”

“I don’t know.”

“So why are you doing it again?” He can’t answer. He has no answer. The steers set up a long series of desperate bawling, then drop off into silence again. The heavy stench and the heat are making his eyes water. He rubs a sleeve across them and believes for a second that he’s actually crying; believes the gesture is about some kind of grief. He sees himself from a distance now, as though looking down from a great height, like the hawk’s point of view: a tiny man in vast space, clutching a chunk of black plastic. He can’t hear his breath now, he’s so far away. He can’t hear his heart.

“Tell Spence I’ll call him, okay?” he says at last.

“You can’t just do me a favor and meet me halfway?”

“I can’t,” he says.

“Are you going to call again?”