Later, Ronny had gone with Ben to Ehringhaus and visited Sheria while Ben was packing the stuff in his room. She was sitting on her bed again, wearing a black dashiki trimmed in bright colors around the neck, sleeves loose; she was reading a Toni Morrison novel and eating corn chips out of a plastic bowl. “Hello there, stranger,” she said, and offered herself to be hugged. “We miss you down here. Where have you been?”

“Here and there. Busy semester. How about you, how are you?”

“I’m in a good mood today. But I go home tomorrow so the good mood won’t last very long.” She laughed, tossing back her head as if she were on stage. “I enjoy my sarcasm. Don’t you?”

“I always have.”

“What brings you to Ehringhaus? I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“I’m helping a friend move out. We’re going to live together next semester.”

“Nice. I have a boyfriend now, you should meet him sometime.”

“Yes?”

“Oh, yes. My mother is having to eat her words.” She gave out that throaty laugh again. “It’s kind of wonderful. I’m taking him home to meet the family for Christmas.”

“Well, don’t let that ruin the romance.”

“It’s out of my hands,” she said, offering her palms in a gesture of helplessness.

He took one of her hands, studied the lines there, the clear strong head line, the heart line all feathery loops and ovals, the life line short and abrupt. She pulled her hands back and slapped his wrist softly. “Don’t try that mess on me. You know I don’t believe it.”

“It was just an excuse to hold your hand for a minute,” he said.

“Isn’t that sweet.”

They watched each other. She was lighter, some of her pain was gone, and he understood the difference. She had met somebody who cared.

When he went back to the car there was Ben with his suitcase and boxes. He arranged everything in the backseat; he had already filled the trunk, he said.

“Should I go say goodbye to Tate?”

“He’s not there,” Ben said. “Out with Kathy, probably. You’ll see him sometime.”

They watched each other, then slid into the car without a word, and drove away from the dorm, the pines, the baseball stadium, the lawn. Shadows slid across the windshield.

So, here they were, setting up house in the forlorn steel box, overwhelmed by the greenwood at the edge of which they hovered, a sense of peace and privacy that pervaded everything. Ben found Christmas lights in the closet and hung them at the window. An old string, paint chipping off the glass. They sat in the room in the ghostly colors. Ben had brought a small television from the dorm room. They plugged it into the living room wall and watched a football game, Dallas playing the Forty-Niners. Ben pounded the arms of the couch and hollered at the screen, grinned at Ronny, relaxed, threw an arm across Ronny’s shoulders, drank beer, ate cold pizza, and they felt a sense of ease.