I don’t really know what I’m saying. I’m going to send this to you, despite my better judgment, and I will write you a saner letter soon.

Love,
Raj

Dearest Raj:

I wanted to tell you, in case Annie hasn’t, that Lewis has disappeared. He’s been gone for more than three weeks now and is officially a Missing Person. Mrs. Yost said she saw a man up in the woods—a “wild” man—but you know what she’s like and now all those rumors about the man of the woods and his white dog have returned. I know you and Annie haven’t corresponded for a few months. I don’t know why. I’ve noticed Annie has stopped asking me about you. I asked if she was angry at you. She said she was angry at herself. She said she treated you unfairly, expected too much, and realizes now that she was depressed after the birth of the baby—who still hasn’t got a name.

I really enjoyed my last trip to Boston. Rachel seems like a lovely woman and she clearly adores you. But Raj, I have to say it: She looks so much like Annie it’s shocking.

I can’t stand it that you two, who’ve spent your lives together, are so estranged. At first I wanted you to get away from everything here. Some of that was petty. I wanted you to be successful. I wanted that damn father of yours, that damn uncle, to see you recognized by the whole world. In the beginning I was afraid, afraid that Annie would trap you here. But she wouldn’t do that, I know, and more than anything in the world, right now, she would love to see you. Needs to see you.

All my love,
Ruth

ANNIE WAS TYPING OUT SOME LETTERS FOR SAUL. After Lew’s disappearance—he had been gone for close to a month now—she had returned to the apartment and had taken over his job in the insurance agency, leaving Baby with her mom when she had to work. Her mom and dad wanted her to remain at home, but it would have killed her to stay any longer. She tried to go out as little as possible because she hated the questions and pitying looks. She saw Ruth, mostly, with whom she was collaborating on a children’s book. Nora, pregnant now, came around a few times a week. She told Annie that sometimes she couldn’t believe she was married to Walter, that sweet, near mute man with his sad denim-blue eyes and that hulking body he hardly seemed to know what to do with. She said this wasn’t how she imagined she would feel for her husband, and confessed that Raj was still on her mind all the time, though she had never sent him so much as a Christmas card and hadn’t invited him to her wedding, which she regretted. But it was a deep injury she felt, and in that sense Walter was perfect: a gentle presence, like a balm or a home-cooked meal or a quiet, temperate room. Annie wondered what Nora’s child would come to know: his father’s story, certainly, about how he had decided to marry Nora when he was thirteen; but not his mother’s, who had wished more than anything for that child’s father to have been another man.