“Then what?”

He shrugged, grinding his jaw. He put a hand on Ronny’s shoulder to show him it was all right. But he stared straight up at the ceiling.

“Is it like you told me it would be?”

His eyes were brimming, tears streaming out. He let Ronny lie there but Ronny knew better than to do more. After a while, Ben exhaled, heavily, as if he had been exerting himself. “Nothing’s changed, Ronny. Not between you and me. Okay? Just let me go.”

“Can you call me? Let me know you’re all right?”

“Yes.” He swallowed. “I’ll try. You’re not coming back to the dorm, are you?”

“No. I can’t.”

“I could never have done this without you here.” Wiping at his face. He looked as if he were strangling. He let nothing out, building it all toward whatever release he meant to have, that had nothing to do with Ronny or anyone else.

“Do you want to leave now, drive back tonight?”

“I want to stay right here as long as I can.”

Fall

MRS. DELACY TRIED TO MAKE COOKIES THAT morning, the burn smell filling the upstairs, guys coming to their doorways looking at one another. Ronny put on his shoes and hurried down the steps into the kitchen, where she was standing with a smoking cookie sheet, pot holders in her hands, looking at it as though she was not sure what it was, as though she was not sure where she was, turning when Ronny came into the room. He took the pot holders and carried the cookie sheet to the back door. Charred cookie shapes smoking, a ruin. He threw the little charcoals into the garbage, left the pan to cool on the table with the back door open. She was standing in the doorway, watching. “Oh, lord help me,” she said. “I messed it up again.”

“Don’t worry about it, Miss Dee.”

“I didn’t even remember I was baking anything.”

This was November, a chilly morning after a storm swept color down from the trees, the yard golden and bronze, wet leaves clinging to the steps. A beginning of the fall of leaves in the canopy overhead, trees in every direction. One must have a mind of winter. He was reading Wallace Stevens in a class, “The Dove in the Belly,” the first time he had felt a poem in his marrow. “The whole of appearance is a toy. For this, / The dove in the belly builds his nest and coos …” It made him shiver. The nothing that is. Miss Dee was standing at the door from the hallway. “Is the kitchen on fire?” she asked.

“No. It’s fine.”

“But I smell smoke.”

“There was a pan of cookies burning in the oven.”

Jamal had entered the kitchen behind her, and stood there scratching his chin. He was trying to grow a beard, mousy hairs splattered here and there, almost comical except he took it so seriously.

“Who was trying to bake cookies?” she asked. “You boys aren’t supposed to use the kitchen.”