When she saw Mike Eagle for the last time, he had hardened against her in some odd way. She felt he didn’t like her at all. But just before he left, he handed her a roll of bills. “Just some undeclared Jewish profits,” he said. “God! What’s going to happen to you!” Then he kissed her cheeks, and ran his hand down her arm. “I’m sad,” he said heavily, looking plumper than ever, and awkward, as though he couldn’t feel the edge of his own body. She kissed his olive cheek, tasting the particular smooth, faintly oily quality of his skin. Never again, she told herself. And then, startling them both, she pressed the money he had given her back into his hand.

“No, no. Take it!”

“Help me,” she said. “I don’t want to this time.”

He looked closely at her face, as though examining it for symptoms of physical distress. Then he put the money back in his pocket. “Annie makes a resolution,” he said.

“Don’t make fun.”

“I won’t, not even in memory.”

She spent a few hours with Eva. Theda was there and had bought her a pretty blue cardigan sweater—“In case you get to Lapland.” Eva had made her a lumpy chocolate cake.

But Thomas wasn’t there. “At the sitter’s,” Eva explained. “He’s a little nervous these days when people come. It’s the eye trouble.”

“What eye trouble?” Annie asked.

“I would have thought Max had written you about it,” Eva said with a touch of irony. Annie was startled. Max had told Eva about their correspondence!

“No, he hasn’t. I haven’t heard from him for a while,” she said, abashed.

“Oh? Well, you might get to see him in New York. He’ll be stopping there before he comes home.”

“What about Thomas’s eyes?”

“We don’t know yet. He’s been examined by several doctors. It’s all made him very nervous.” Eva looked vaguely around the room as though searching for the little boy. “I’m sure it’ll be all right,” she said. Theda asked, “What’s it called? What he has.”

“I can’t even pronounce it,” Eva replied, and offered them more coffee with a rush of words about the cake, why it was lumpy, the recipe she’d used.

Eva shook her hand formally and wished her good luck. Only when she turned back to the apartment did Annie see the anguish on her face. Driving Theda home, she said, “What was that all about?”

“It was Eva, being evasive,” said Theda. “Maybe you’d better not tell Max about it, if you do see him. He’s used to getting information indirectly.”

“Not from me,” Annie said.

“He’s not yours,” said Theda sternly.

“I never thought I owned anybody.”

“Hunh.”

She telephoned Cletus early in the morning. She could hear Brahms playing in the background. Her heart sank with dread. She was leaving the only place she’d ever been for any length of time, the only friends she’d ever really had.