Two weeks after we reached the hospital, Ruth's temporary rented room had to be empty by noon, and the man driving the hired car would not wait past eleven. She had chosen the room herself after leaving treatment; now she wanted more distance from Mercer. I stood beside her bed with the last of the boat money folded inside my shirt. She had two cardboard boxes, a valise, and no reason to trust another man who offered transportation. When I reached for the smaller box, she put her shoe against it. “Where exactly?” I gave her the boardinghouse address. “Then I telephone first,” she said.
I waited in the hall while she used the telephone downstairs. My shoulder throbbed beneath the sling; somebody was frying onions behind a closed door. When she returned, she had written the landlady's name on the back of an envelope. She told the driver the address herself. I carried the valise with my good hand while she and the driver brought the boxes. Nothing in them concerned Mercer’s accounts. They were clothes, kitchen things, and the ordinary weight of starting over.
Halfway out of town, the driver pulled into a filling station and said the price we had agreed covered only the city. The boardinghouse lay farther south, beyond the streets where I knew every loading entrance. Ruth reached for the door handle. I could see her preparing to abandon the ride rather than be cornered by another bargain. I paid the difference through the front seat. It left less than I had counted on, but she took her hand off the latch.
At the boardinghouse, a woman in a blue apron would not accept payment from me until Ruth had seen the room. I liked her for that and resented how late I had learned to like such things. We climbed narrow stairs. Ruth opened the window, tested the lock, and looked into a clean basin. Then she nodded. Downstairs I paid for two weeks. The landlady wrote a receipt in Ruth's name and handed it to her, not to me.
I set the valise beside the bed and told Ruth I could come back Saturday. “Don't make yourself my keeper,” she said. Her voice was quiet enough that I nearly pretended not to hear. I put the change from the room payment on the dresser. “For meals.” She divided it, pushed half toward me, and closed her hand over the rest. “I decide who comes upstairs.” I left without asking for the room number to be written down.
By the time I reached the bus station, Ada and Daniel were standing beside their luggage. Leon had brought them but was already gone. Daniel held both tickets between two fingers, keeping them clear of his mother's purse. I offered to ride with them as far as their destination and help carry things in. He looked at my sling, then directly at me. “No.” Ada stayed beside him. Neither softened the word, and I made myself leave it alone.
Their bus backed into its bay with a cough of dark exhaust. I took Ada's case, lighter than the suitcase I had failed to lift, and followed them through the door. A porter reached for it, but I said I had it. Pride still had ways of dressing itself as usefulness. The first step jarred my shoulder. Daniel caught the bottom of the case before it dragged me backward. Together we got it inside, neither of us looking at the other.
Ada settled by the window. I brought the smaller bag down the aisle and slid it beneath her seat with my foot. The driver called that passengers needed to sit. I took out the remaining bills and pressed them into Ada's hand. “For the other end.” She glanced at the money. “What will you eat?” “Something.” She tried to return a bill. I closed her fingers gently, then let go before the gesture could become another demand. Daniel stood aside to let me pass.
On the platform he followed me down one step. For a moment I thought he meant to say goodbye differently. “Don't send anybody after us,” he said. I told him I wouldn't. He watched until I moved clear, then climbed aboard. That was what I had earned: a promise he could measure by my absence. The door folded shut. Ada raised her hand through the glass, low beside her shoulder. I raised mine without trying to find Daniel behind her.
The bus pulled away, leaving a strip of wet pavement where its shadow had been. I had no truck, no tools, and no errand somebody important was waiting for me to finish. Across the street, a day-labor office had a handwritten notice asking for warehouse hands. I could offer only one worth hiring. I waited for traffic, crossed, and went toward the open door.