Endless road engendered endless thought. Local architecture provoked in me nostalgia that I could not possibly have. Night caused distracting roadside images to fade into nothing. In the backseat was a pile of letters that radiated unease. Flashbacks of Clarissa’s moonlit body presented themselves as floating pictures. My father’s letter had finally been delivered to its ultimate reader. Over the next few hours, I experienced emotions for which there were no names. I felt like a different kind of pioneer, a discoverer of new feelings, of new blends of old sentiments, and I was unable to identify them as they passed through me. I decided to name them like teas, Blue Malva, Orange Pekoe Delight, Gardenia Ochre Assam. Then I worked on new facial expressions to go with my newly named emotions. Forehead raised, upper lip puffed, chin jutted. Eyes crossed, mouth agape, lower teeth showing.

I would sit in the backseat and hold Teddy on my lap when he was squirmy in his car seat. But when he was sacked out, I would sit in the front and mentally play with my $350,000. What I knew about finance had been gained through osmosis, but I estimated that I could, without risk, get about 6 percent on my inheritance. This meant that I could withdraw $41,747 a year for twelve years before the principal was depleted. Forty-one thousand dollars a year was twice what I was living on now, which I wouldn’t really have needed had it not been for my next question to Clarissa. It was 9 P.M. and we were tired. “Can you slow, and pull off?” I said.

“Here?” she said.

The reason she said “here” was because we were on the darkest, loneliest highway on the darkest moonless evening. “It’s a fabulous night and us folks ought to pop out and look at various stars.” I spoke with an echo of a drawl to make my e-less sentence sound more reasonable.

She slowed and stopped. The mechanical hum of the car had become accepted as silence, but when we got out of the car, the further, deeper silence of the desert shocked us both. Holding Teddy, I leaned against the car and pointed out the dipper, then the North Star, then Jupiter. A meteor caught my eye but Clarissa turned too late. Clarissa and I didn’t speak, but this quiet was different from the stiltedness in the car. The air was cold and brittle but was punctuated with surprising eddies of heated winds.

It was going to take some acting on my part to keep her from knowing that my mouth was on a three-second delay from my brain while it tried to eliminate the letter e from everything I was about to say.

What I wanted to say was, “There’s a three bedroom at the Rose Crest for rent. Would you and Teddy like to share it with me?” but it was shot through with e’s. So instead I slouched back onto the fender and said, “I was shown a big vacant flat across from my pad. I’m thinking of taking it. If you want to, you could stay. I could watch him so you could study.” There was a long pause. “You could stay in your own big room. I don’t mind waking up with junior on nights you just want to conk out.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, though I wanted to keep talking so I would never have to hear her answer.

“How much is it?” she said.

“I would pay all our monthly bills, food, all that. You could finish school.”

“Why would you do that?” she said.

Because I am insane. Because I am lonely. Because I love you. Because I love Teddy. “It could work for both of us,” I said. “I’d watch him and you could go to school.”

“Can I let you know?”

“Naturally,” I said.

“We would be sharing, right?” she said.

She meant, sharing and that’s all. I nodded yes and we got back in the car.

Twelve hours later she said, “I think it could work. You’re sure you’re okay with it?”

“I am.”

The drive from Granny’s had been one of escalating greenery, ending in the sight of home. The scrub of southern Texas had given way to cacti, which had given way to the occasional oasis in Arizona, which had given way to the pines and oaks of California, which turned into curbs and streets. When we finally pulled up in front of my apartment, I stuck my foot out of the car, put it on the grass, and said, “Sleet, greet, meet, fleet street.” Clarissa looked at me like I was crazy.

Over the next few days, every habit of mine returned with a new intensity, as though I owed it a debt.

There were two letters waiting for me when I returned. One was a kindly but brief note from my sister informing me of Granny and our inheritance, the other from a law firm in San Antonio informing me of the same. Ida’s letter, though less emotional than a letter from Granny, still had the same embedded goodness, and I wrote her back apologizing for my years of silence, listing a few of my dominant quirks so she could understand me a bit better. The letter was so good that I copied it and sent it to the law firm, too, though I realized later they could use it against me in court and try to keep the money for themselves. But they didn’t.

The FOR LEASE sign was still up at the Rose Crest, but I didn’t want to make any moves until the cash was in hand, and the money took several weeks-of course-to become mine. I had to prove who I was, which was not easy. I thought my argument to them-that I was me because no one else was me-was convincing, but it was not what they were looking for. I had to prove my lineage. My documents were vague. I had no driver’s license and could not find my birth certificate. Ultimately the legal firm came to a decision; they had no one to give the money to but me, and my sister had vouched for me, so enough was enough and they sent me the dough.

I now had an actual reason to call Elizabeth the Realtor. Not having a phone, I got the address of her company and walked there, even though the route proved to be almost impossible. I wondered if my path, when viewed from an airplane, would spell out my name. Just before giving up, I found a crosswalk for the handicapped that had two scooped-out curbs and used it as a gangplank to get to Elizabeth ’s block. I left a note that said I was interested in the apartment.

She drove by several hours later and I ran down the stairs before she could get to my door. Elizabeth must have developed an extremely sophisticated wealth detector because she suddenly began treating me as a viable customer who was swimming in cash, even though I was sure that nothing in my behavior had changed. Even after I made her drive me across the street, which wasn’t more than twenty steps, she maintained a professional front and showed no exasperation. Or maybe she perceived my indifference toward her and was trying to win me back.

Within the hour, I’d leased the three-bedroom and even negotiated the price down fifty dollars a month. I had another eight days on my monthly rent and I told her I would move in at week’s end. I watched Teddy several times that week and Clarissa showed no signs of backtracking.

I was now purchasing a newspaper every day and perusing the financial section. I diligently followed bonds, mutual funds, and stocks and noted their movement. Movement was what I hated. I didn’t like that one day you could have a dollar and the next you could have eighty cents without having done anything. On the other hand, the idea that you could have a dollar and the next day have a dollar twenty thrilled me no end. I was worried that on the day my dollar was worth eighty cents I would be sad, and on the day it was worth a dollar twenty I would be elated, though I did like the idea of knowing exactly why I was in a certain mood. But I saw another possibility. If I bought bonds and held them to maturity, then the fluctuations in their value wouldn’t affect me, and I liked that their dividends trickled in with regularity. This meant that my mood, too, would constantly trickle upward and by maturity, I would be ecstatic.