Devesh nodded and started for the door, but he had misunderstood. She had only wanted him to stop talking. She didn’t want to know anything more, and she understood why he had been so uninterested in the news articles. How could you reconcile the act—this man’s heroic deed—with this mass of burnt flesh. It was too awful, too much.

“What happened to the baby?” she asked.

“She died.”

She stepped to the side of the bed and grazed a single finger lightly against the top sheet. She wanted to whisper something numbing and comforting, but instead she ran her finger back and forth, back and forth.

CHAPTER NINE

SHE HAD THOUGHT HERSELF IN LOVE BEFORE. TWICE. THE FIRST time with her college boyfriend, J. D. Henry, a Midwestern boy who thought in scientific equations. He was the first boy she ever brought home, and when they drove up the long, winding driveway to her childhood house, he quietly surveyed the huge property and then said, “What kind of watering system have your parents installed?” She loved him for this and thought that no matter what happened that weekend, she would be okay if she thought about watering systems. But to her surprise, the visit went reasonably well. Her father tried too hard to impress him with his collection of antique maps, and her mother was relentless in her questioning of what J.D. intended to do when he graduated, but there were no major eruptions until Sunday night.