“They’re going to be so late,” Irise said. “We won’t get to see them for more than two hours. If they don’t hurry up we won’t get to see them at all.”

“I’m going to see Malcolm all night. I signed out to spend the night over here with you. I’m sneaking out as soon as we sign in.”

“You have to tell our housemother.”

“I already did. I told her when I came in.”

“How will you get out?”

“I don’t know. How do people do it?”

“I don’t think they do.”

“There has to be a window somewhere on the ground floor. All I have to do is climb out and climb back in. I used to do it all the time at Southern Seminary.”

“What would you do when you got out?”

“Sleep on the ground or in the stables. Nobody’s keeping me locked in. Dudley and I’ve been sneaking out of our house at night since we were twelve years old. There’s nothing to it, Irise. You just do it.”

“There’s the car. It’s Charles William’s car. It’s them. Oh, Rhoda, here they are.”

Charles William’s car drove up and Malcolm got out and came up on the sidewalk and put his arms around me. I had forgotten how big he was, how powerful he was. I had forgotten how much I loved him. I only thought I had remembered. Irise and I signed out and we went to a drive-in and ordered things and talked. “I’m applying to Taliesin West to study with the Wright foundation,” Charles William said. “They have summer apprenticeships. If I get one Irise and I will go next summer. It would be the greatest thing that ever happened to me. He built houses that fit the earth. He’s revolutionized architecture.”

“What time do you have to be in?” Malcolm whispered. He was holding me between his legs in the backseat. His tweed coat, the muscles of his arms, the power of his legs and hands.

“I don’t have to go in,” I answered. “As soon as we sign in, I’m coming back out.”

“I’ll get us a motel room,” he whispered. “Charles William said I could take the car. Where will you be? What time can you get back out?”