He had heard other stories like this one from her. His own mother was blunt but stopped short of meanness. “Why would she say something like that? Everybody loves you, Sheria.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Well, that’s not true either. It’s not like she can see the future.”

“Do you ever worry about that?” she asked. “Whether anybody will love you?”

She knew he was single, never dated; she probably suspected the truth. He said, “Yes. I do.”

Having exacted the confession, she could relax. There was an I Love Lucy rerun on her television, the volume very low, Lucy rushing around the apartment trying to hide packages she had bought before Ricky came home. He had seen the episode before, more than once. He and Sheria were sitting together peacefully. The anxiety was subsiding. They talked about schoolwork, his job at the student newspaper. “I’m still thinking I’ll go to law school,” she said.

“That would be good. Your mother will pay attention to that.”

She rolled her eyes and blew out her breath. Then she laughed, loud and full. “She will, won’t she?”

Pretty soon after that he could feel that she was tiring of company, fixing her gaze on the television and pretending to enjoy Lucy. He stood and said good night. “Don’t be a stranger,” she said. She had laid her wrists flat on her thighs to conceal the cuts. It was curious that he felt she was in no danger. But the wounds on her wrist were not new. He had known that she veered from depression, from her own fear, into the brightness and gaiety she presented as herself. He had felt kin to her for it.

As it happened, Ben was moody that day following afternoon practice, when he had thrown up in his helmet and had to smell his own vomit for the last hour. You had to put up with that stuff sometimes, he said. “So how was your friend?”

“Fine. Maybe. I don’t know.” He told what had happened. They were sitting in Ben’s old car in the parking lot, Ben eating a hamburger, the night mild, amid shouting from the dorm across the way, people watching Monday Night Football in their rooms. A clatter of leaves across the parking lot, a whole wave of them falling at once, spreading out in the air like a veil.

“Tough to have a mom like that. You really think she hurt herself?”

“Probably. Some people do that.”

Ben balled up the food wrapper, sat back against the seat. He kept his car clean even if it was a bit of a clunker; the wrapper went back into the bag, and he would carry the bag into the dorm and trash it. “So what are you going to do?”

“Just visit her again, I guess. I think she’s always up and down like this.”

Ben was the same in a lot of ways. Now was a good moment. Earlier he had been tense. He shook his head, sniffed, spit onto the pavement. “Sounds like she’s got friends.”