“Please, Pru. Just let me say something to him.”

“No. Anyway he’s not here. I liked you!”

“I liked you too. I’m sorry. It was all wrong . . . very, very wrong . . . completely. I hoped no one would find out.”

“Are you kidding me? Raymond’s never acted happier. He’s talking about dividing his time between here and there, living half with me, half with you.”

“But I’m not there, I’ve left. I’m going home. Not home but, I mean—Massachusetts.”

Pru said, “You mean you fucked Raymond and moved away? No goodbye, or nothing? This must have Raf in it. Is he there with you?”

“No, no, I’m alone. Listen, I won’t bother calling again. If you’d just please tell Raymond . . .”

“It’s all right, I’m not mad anymore. You should call back. You should turn around and come back, the way you sound, Paige, which is scary.”

Stepping out into the Mississippi dawn, the fog was warm and pearl-gray around me. It seemed so palpable I thought I could just part it, make an aisle for myself from the motel door to the car.

Marshes spread with algae wallowed on either side of the asphalt road. This was Winona, halfway between Jackson and Memphis. Beyond the marshes and going on forever was swamp, bitter black swamp, speared with a thousand headless trees; jaggedy stumps, as though their tops had been ripped away. A sign nailed to one said: PAPAW’S CATFISH! Another read: PREPARE TO MEET GOD.

In my dreams, I stepped out a window and fell down a tunnel of air. I plummeted stiff, straight arms and legs, so that a woman watching said at first she thought I was a store mannequin falling. I landed on a Caterpillar diesel generator involved with street repair. Nothing looked broken, the woman told me. But at the hospital I found out everything was broken—my teeth. “That was one hell of a fall,” the doctor said. “From a great, great height.”

The hard, white, straight road shot over the Forked Deer and Big Sandy rivers. Shadow patches drove among the traffic.

As though escorting me, a highway patrolman in dark glasses rode same speed to my left. His cruiser was cream colored; its top, marine blue.

Now it rained and I snapped on the windshield wipers. With their first thwack they made a snarl. They had a load of mud and wet debris to haul.

The cop tooped his horn at me and zoomed out of sight.

The storm changed the sky, left it whirling and wild, left an eerie warmth and the air current electrified. Insects worked a steady zipper sound. The horizon looked Dutch, demented as a Ruisdael.

“Hot Thing” and “Parachute Woman” bammed on the radio.