It occurred to Ronny, at some point during the quiet, that Ben had almost confessed that he was gay himself. Had almost admitted it. But not quite. It should not have been a fleeting thought but it was. He put it away.

“We’re pretty close,” Ben said, turning down the radio. They were listening to “Stairway to Heaven,” Ben singing tunelessly to lines he knew.

“Yeah?”

“You nervous?”

Ronny shook his head. “I don’t know why but I’m not.”

“They should be back from the hospital by now. Dad’s probably ready to freak again.”

“What does he do?”

“Tells her not to throw up if she can help it. Gets grossed out when he has to deal with it. Hates having to help her on and off the toilet. That kind of stuff.”

“That must make her feel great.”

“I think she knows he can’t help it. But it would be a lot easier for her if he would get used to some of this.”

“Man, I’m starving all of a sudden.”

“Did you eat anything this morning?”

Ronny had to stop to think. “No.”

“Shit for brains, what’s wrong with you? Don’t just sit there, tell me what you want.”

“We were so busy talking I just didn’t think about it.”

They stopped at the next place that served anything edible, a hamburger stand called Bobanne’s Burger Palace, outside Pinkley. “This place is all right,” Ben said. “I came here a couple of times. Just get something for the car. I’m hungry, too.”

By the time they had eaten, they were nearly there. The outskirts of Turtletrack emerged out of a curve of the road and across from a broad swath of fields under cultivation, mostly soybeans and corn. Ben pointed out the fertilizer dealership and a few of the other landmarks, including the high school where he had played football. The town sprawled for a fair distance away from its main intersection, marked by neither river nor creek. Smaller than Goldsboro, and located in that part of Virginia and North Carolina that people only find if they mean to. There were pretty elms arched over Main Street—all of them dying of Dutch elm disease, according to Ben. Houses lay so scattered among treetops that they appeared to be growing under the canopy. Even at first glance the town had an appearance of quiet desperation, as though it no longer knew why it was there.

Ronny took a deep breath, feeling sudden tension in his middle, in spite of his earlier claim. A town where everybody knew everybody, like so many other places in this rural part of the world. One of these houses belonged to Ben, and his family was there. What would they think of him?

Hospital Bed

THE NICKELSEN HOUSE SAT ON A small wooded lot on what looked like a third of an acre of yard or so, in a tidy neighborhood of similar houses, on a street named Crosscreek. Brick on the first floor, siding on the second, nothing in particular to distinguish it beyond a couple of flower beds that needed weeding and a pair of pink flamingos that looked to have stood in the same spot, at the side of the front stoop, since the days of Eisenhower. The grass needed mowing but not badly and the windows needed cleaning at the front but that, too, appeared to be dirt of recent vintage. A huge old magnolia dominated the front yard. Ronny fetched his bag and Ben took it from him and walked him into the house.