“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.

“Why didn’t you come and see me?” Cletus asked. She was silent, looking at the receiver.

“Yeah,” said Cletus, as though she’d answered. “That’s how it goes. I’ll think of you, Annie.”

“I’ll think of you.”

The following morning at six, two suitcases in the back of the old car, and a full tank of gas, off the ration now, she drove out of Los Angeles. A few miles beyond the city limits, on the side of the road, a Negro soldier stood holding a sign that read HOUSTON. She stopped the car. The man ran to the door and opened it.

“Thanks,” he said, getting in. “How far are you going?”

“All the way east,” Annie said.

“My name’s Mason White,” he said.

“You live in Houston?”

“I do now. War’s all over. I’m going home.”

Chapter 18

They drove night and day, spelling each other. He slept, his head against the window, his overseas cap draped over one knee while Annie took them through the Mohave mountains, dropping ever southward, pushing the car to its highest rattling speed through night-shut villages until Mason White touched her arm and said, “Not too fast along in here. We don’t want to be stopped.” She had forgotten there were towns—she had been driving across a map, unpeopled, a matter of road signs, of dirt roads leading off from the main highway to no place at all.