“Raj, no one would rent us a room. I don’t even know why I’m saying that. This is crazy. I can’t allow you—”

“I’m not doing this because I feel sorry for you. And I know it’s impossible right now. And I want to find Lew and I want to make him well. But I need you to know that I’ll do…anything for you. I’ll give up school. I’ll come here.”

She felt as if a pulsing current were running up her body. Why was everything so dreamlike with him? She thinks about him and he walks right in, as if he has never left. He offers her everything she wants, and yet she finds she can do nothing but turn him down. What were her reasons? Lew, of course, but Lew was gone; she knew that. Even if he came back, she couldn’t risk Baby with him. And pride, of course: She just couldn’t believe that Raj wanted, at this time in his life, to take on a woman with someone else’s child.

“By the way”—Raj leaned in a little closer—“did you really want me to search for ticks that time?”

She laughed. “You’re such a dummkopf.”

“Look, Annie, though I can’t tell you I love you, since it isn’t in my nature, I’m hoping you’re perceptive enough to see that I do. When I saw you in your dad’s store the first day I got here, I knew this Pigs Are Misery place wasn’t going to be so bad after all. I should have asked you to marry me then.”

“You weren’t talking.”

“Oh, that’s right. Anyway, I’m here now. I’m going to spend every day looking for Lew. I’m going to check out every skid row and every institution in the state. We’re going to find him. And I guess that’s all we should think about right now.”

They were quiet for a moment and he began to get embarrassed, biting his lip and taking a sudden interest in the ceiling. She embraced him, looking up into his shy face. It was so troubled and so innocent, somehow, and she was so sick of feeling thwarted, she couldn’t keep from kissing him. He was surprised, and her kiss was so brief he was hardly able to return it. Then he looked as if he were trying to think of some joke to make, but the bell in the office rang.

“I should get that,” she said.

“I’ve got to go anyway,” he said. “I want to drop in on Nora and Walt.”

She nodded, brushing down her blouse and sweeping back her hair. “Do I look okay?”

Smiling, he drawled proudly in his most egregious southern accent, “Little lady, you look like you been savaged by a wild critter for sure.”