Dear God. Another sound from upstairs, the creak of the bed. Lewis. Lewis of the ville. The slugger. Out of the park. Home run! He knew Kane wasn’t really here, but he had been standing there in the corner of the office for a while, picking at his bad teeth. The baby. If he could just hold out until the baby came. He didn’t care what happened to him then. He would go to the river, drift free, be eaten by a thousand fish, to enter that new life of scattering and being together at once, like starlings above the fields; to be, at last, the living membrane between the all and the one, the temple ruins and the bone doll, the world will and the wandering way.

Annie. Annie was unhappy. He clutched his own head. He wished he could tear it open, rip all the knots out of his mind. He didn’t want any of this. He wanted to be normal. He heard Raj coming back down the stairs.

“All right, buddy,” Raj said, entering. “I’ll be back at Thanksgiving.”

He got up and Raj embraced him. He wanted to say something to his friend but couldn’t think what.

“Come visit me,” Raj said. “It’s not far.”

“I can’t stop thinking bad things,” he said.

“What bad things?”

He wanted to tell Raj that he couldn’t stop killing, that he was the death of life. You kill me, Kane shouted from the corner. You slay me. You made a killing off of me, slugger. Lewis. Lewis of the ville. Out of the park. Home run!

When he turned back to his friend, Raj was staring with confusion into that corner.

“When I come visit, we can go to a Sox game.”

“What bad things?” Raj said.

“Nothing. I’m just worried, you know. It’ll be okay when the baby’s born.”

Raj stared at him, searching. Kane kept shouting from the corner and he was trying not to look.

“Listen,” Raj said, “I know you have a good job here and everything, but couldn’t you and Annie come and live in Boston, near me? There are lots of jobs there. Remember you said once when we were kids that we’d all live in the same house?”

“It was Annie said that.”

“Are you feeling all right? If you want me to stay I’ll stay.”

“No, no. We’re proud of you, Annie and me. Worry is all. It’ll be okay. When the baby’s here, everything will be good.”

Ruth adjusted the collar of Raj’s coat as the train came to a stop. It was still dark, and they were the only two on the platform.

“I like the fact that you don’t cry, Ruth.”