Abe hung up without responding. He’d gotten a cramp in his foot, he told me, shooting all through his leg. He said it was the most painful experience of his entire life.

“Oh God, Abe. Of course it was.”

“I don’t mean like pain in your heart. I mean it hurt. My whole leg.”

I waited for a moment. This was over the phone. I hadn’t seen Abe in months. I said, “You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I told this woman we’d—There are things that have to get done, I guess. I need to go out and do them.”

I heard him crying. It was a very liquid sound. I wasn’t crying yet.

After a moment he said, “I’m going to hang up now.”

“Please don’t.”

He didn’t reply, but I could still hear him breathing, and then there was a click and I could tell he was gone.

*   *   *

He called back just after dawn. I was living across town, where the light seemed to burn clearer and earlier through the clouds, harsh on the bare floors of my single-chaired room.

“I’m going,” he said. “I’d like you to come.”

“That’s what you want?”

“We can’t leave her body out there.”

“I’ll do it however you want, Abe. I want to make it better. I don’t want to make it harder.”

“This isn’t about me. It’s her. You mattered to her.”

When he picked me up, his body was hunched over the steering wheel, and he raised his hand gently and gave me a little wave. I got into the passenger seat, leaned over, and put my arms around him. His body didn’t yield. I felt the gearshift digging into my side. We drove in silence across the bridge. We nearly had it to ourselves.

“Are you okay?” I said.

“I won’t be able to give you too much talk. Not about this. Not yet.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I told him. “You don’t have to be sorry.”

“I didn’t apologize. I only said I couldn’t.” Pain had stripped him to his hardest nerves. He drove fast and reckless, swerving into lanes, but his face was rigid. His speed wasn’t about pleasure, flying over the hills of the city at night. It was about getting rid of the distance.

In the middle of the desert we hit an animal on the highway. It could have been a dog or a raccoon. I didn’t even see it crossing. Abe cried, “Oh, shit!” He jerked the wheel right and veered in front of a minivan. There was a honk that seemed to last a whole minute. Abe started laughing beside me.

“Holy shit!” he said. “Did you see it go flying?”

He was laughing harder now, shoulders shaking. “It was really . . . It was like some kind of fucking meteor.”

“Jesus, Abe.”

He clutched the wheel harder. “It was really . . .” His laughing hushed into a wheezing. “It was really something.”