“I know you do. I want you to. I love you, Malcolm. I just want to make sure everything’s going to be all right.”

“It will be all right. The apartment’s ready. Minx and Henry are waiting for us. So tell your folks we’re leaving. Because I’m leaving here tomorrow, Rhoda, whether you go with me or not.” He turned and looked down at me and I had to choose. Either I packed up my baby and went to Atlanta to be a wife or I would never be loved again. I was ruined now. I had a baby and fat around my waist and it was Malcolm or no one. Besides, I had never had any real attention or tenderness from my father. Why would I expect it from any other man?

We had rented a trailer a week before to carry the furniture my mother was giving us for the apartment and the paraphernalia for the baby and the boxes of books I took everywhere. The trailer was half packed already. As soon as we woke up the next morning we finished packing. We unscrewed the pieces of the crib and put that in. We folded up the bassinet and the bathinet and the high chair and the stroller and stuck the books underneath and closed the back and locked it. We stuffed the suitcases full of clothes in the trunk of the car and locked the trunk. We put the wicker baby basket in the backseat and then we got into the car and began to try to leave. My parents were hanging on the windows of the car trying to give us advice and money and some more furniture and the phone numbers of doctors in Atlanta and begging us to stay another day. We drove off finally with them still calling after us and drove down beside the park and out onto the highway leading north and east to Atlanta. Hotlanta, Georgia, where we were going to be happy forever and ever and ever, amen.

“Are you going to hold him all the way to Atlanta?” Malcolm said. “Can you put him back there in that bed?”

“In a minute I can. As soon as he falls asleep. Why?”

“Because I want you to sit over here and put your hand on my dick. Because I want to see how it feels to be alone with you.”

“That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard you say. What made you say that?”

“I don’t know. I just feel good. Roll down the other windows, will you? It’s going to be so hot today. It’s going to be ninety-five all the way to Atlanta.”

“I hope we have everything we need. Are you sure the apartment’s going to be ready?”