When he was finished, he sat at the desk. He pulled out the journal he tried to keep intermittently and wrote: Cold hot wind blowing through me, feeling of falling any time I’m next to him, feel like I am coming apart sometimes, feel like the sun is on me even at midnight, feel like midnight even at noon, want to think about Ben’s face, just think about his face, hold it in front of me. I feel so screwed up. Just here because he’s hurting and I make him feel better, just scared now and needs me because he can talk to me, this can’t be real, nobody could really like me this much, don’t even like myself this much, have faith. Have faith. Hold on. Happy.

But there was trouble in him whatever words he wrote on the page, that he had plunged into some abyss and could not find any solid world around him, that he had risked his quiet and solitude for something that burned him and chilled him and soothed him and frightened him all at once. Away from Ben he felt more of the fear of how open to Ben he had become, what he risked in doing that, because Ben could change his mind, after all.

Something hit the window at his back and he stood and turned. Ben stood there poised with another pecan. A flood of relief washed through Ronny at the sight, that face so open and content, that body so large and welcoming. He gestured to Ronny to come and so Ronny carried the suitcase downstairs, past Miss Dee, who was standing in her kitchen door. She appeared quite lively today and came toward him smiling, recognizing him from farther away. Beyond her, in the kitchen, sat another woman in a green coat with a hat on her head and a purse in her lap.

“Hello, son, how are you?”

“Great, Miss Dee. I found a job.”

Ben came walking up to the front door, open for the breeze; he had his hands in his pockets, grinning.

“Here’s your friend,” she said, watching Ben. “He got a job. Did you hear?”

“I figured he would.”

“Isn’t that just marvelous? And on such a beautiful day.”

“It’s a nice day all right,” Ben said, and smiled at her to show off his dimples.

“Oh, look at that!” The woman in the kitchen had turned in her seat. She was holding a little glass of clear brown liquid and her cheeks were flushed. “You are such a handsome young man!”

“Oh hush, Clara, and don’t act the fool.”

“Well, I’m just telling the truth.”

“Don’t pay any attention to her. We’ve just been talking and having a little glass of sherry wine and it went right straight to her head.”

“Oh, Miss Dee,” Ben said. “You’re running wild.”

Miss Dee said, “Now don’t you be like that. I’m old enough for a drink when I want one.”

“We may be old but we’re not dead yet,” said Clara, adjusting her hat. She had applied some lipstick that brightened her face but her attempt at mascara was mostly smears. “I hadn’t seen you here before.”