As the figure approached, her worst fears materialized in the thin lozenge of moonlight from the window: a thickly bearded, filthy, and disheveled man. She could smell him now too—overwhelmingly rank. She still couldn’t make a sound or move, her limbs leaden. He sat heavily on the bed.

“They burned me,” he said.

“Lew?” She could see him a little more clearly now. “Lew.”

With a clawlike hand, his nails long and blackened, he drew the sheet down. Afraid for Baby, she quickly got out the other side of the bed.

“Where have you been?” she said.

“I thought it was me,” he said. “But they burned me. They separated my organs.” He made a shape with his hands. “Hard burned skin—rind—around my heart and my kidneys. My lungs have gone solid and I breathe in my brain now. My brain breathes. I can feel it. They left me for dead, but I put my pieces together. I took my windpipe and I threaded on my organs. I’m a breathing brain, like storm clouds. But it was never me they were after, except that I knew. It was him.” He indicated the child.

Annie put Baby back in the cot, since she felt he was safer out of sight, but he began to cry.

“You have to keep him quiet.” Lew seemed panicked. “He’s calling for them.”

“He’s not calling for anything. He’s just hungry.”

“You don’t understand. They think I’m dead. They don’t know I learned to breathe in my brain.”

Annie sat back on the bed and firmly took up his hands. He smelled so revolting she had to struggle to stop herself gagging. “Lew, do you know who I am?”

This seemed to frighten him. She had asked the question in the wrong way: She mustn’t create any space for his diseased imagination to inhabit.

“Lew, I’m Annie. Do you remember? I’m Annie, your wife. This is our baby. We’ve known each other since we were children. I was worried about you.”

“You’ve got to stop it.” He got up and moved around the bed toward the cot, but she stepped in front of him, pressing her hands firmly to his chest.

“I’ll stop his crying.” She lifted Baby out, sat again, and put him to her breast.

Lew kept still and quiet as she fed Baby and Annie talked as normally as she could—about his father, her family, Raj, and other things going on in town. He still seemed agitated, though, his eyes frantic and confused. After a while Baby stopped feeding and fell asleep. She laid him in his cot. Then she raised her hand out to Lew.

“Lew, come with me. We’re going to have a bath.”

To her surprise he took her hand and let her lead him into the little bathroom.

“What is it going to do?” he said, glancing back at Baby.

“He’s asleep.”