As she drew the bath she began without thinking to sing to him, just whatever words came to her head in a gentle, calming melody. It seemed to ease his agitation and he let her take off his clothes—a jacket, a filthy pair of tracksuit pants, and mismatched sneakers, none of which she had seen before. Getting him into the tub, she washed him thoroughly, shampooing his matted hair four times. The water turned black. Still singing, she got him out, dried him gently, then clipped and cleaned his nails. He even sat still enough to let her cut his beard, shave him, and trim his hair. Her Lew emerged from this monster. Finally, she got him to brush his own teeth, which he seemed to remember how to do, but his gums bled profusely. She sang then to keep herself from crying. Finally she led him to the bed. Getting in with him, she rubbed his back and sang until he fell asleep.

When she was sure of this, she slipped out, got Baby, and made her way as quietly as she could to the landing just outside the front door of the apartment, where there was a telephone. She didn’t shut the door, just pulled it to, because she was afraid it would make too much noise.

As she was dialing Ruth’s number, the apartment door flew open and Lew, naked, wrenched Baby out of her arms while pushing her back. She just saved herself from falling down the stairs by taking hold of the banister. Before she could regain her balance, he was back in the apartment and had locked the door.

Annie threw her body hard against it, screaming, “Lew, don’t hurt the baby. Don’t hurt our baby. Lew, it’s your baby. It’s your son. Don’t hurt him.”

She hammered for a moment longer, then listened, but couldn’t hear anything. She sprinted down, out of the store, and up the fire escape. But the door was wide open, the apartment empty. He must have gone straight out with Baby. She ran into the street and looked around but couldn’t see him anywhere. Running up Main, she screamed for him. Lights came on in the apartments above the stores. She could hear windows opening. A feeling of utter unreality seemed to bore down into her from the suddenly heavy and precarious sky. The bright full moon mocked her, sour in the darkness. Dozens of roads and alleys branched off Main, ending in fields and woods. These paths and fields and woods seemed to multiply around her, Baby, broken into a thousand pieces, absorbed, as air through lungs, into the body of night. From everywhere the cicadas screamed like electric babies.

“Baby,” she shouted. Her child didn’t have a name. “Lew,” she screamed. But that name meant nothing.