“You are, huh? You curious, too, Kaye?”

Kaye laughed and felt her laughter catch, threaten to reverse to tears. “I am.”

“You want to see this baby when he comes, don’t you?”

“I would like to buy you both a present,” Kaye said.

“That’s nice. Then why not go find yourself a man and get this flu, and we’ll visit together and compare, you and me, our two fine youngsters, all right? And I’ll buy you a present.” The suggestion carried not a hint of anger, absurdity, or resentment.

“I might do that, Lu.”

“We get along, Kaye. Thanks for caring about me and you know, looking at me like I was people and not a lab rat.”

“May I call you again?”

“We’re moving soon, but we’ll find each other, Kaye. We will. You take care.”

Kaye walked down the long corridor from the rest rooms. She touched her forehead. She was hot. Her stomach was unsettled, as well. Get this flu and we ‘II visit and compare.

Mitch stood outside the restaurant with his hands in his pockets, squinting at the passing cars. He turned and smiled at her as he heard the heavy wood door open.

“I called Mrs. Hamilton,” she said. “She’s going to have her baby.”

“Very brave of her.”

“People have been having babies for millions of years,” Kaye said.

“Yeah. Piece of cake. Where do you want to get married?” Mitch asked.

“How about Columbus?”

“How about Morgantown?”

“Sure,” Kaye said.

“If I think about this much longer, I’m going to be completely useless.”

“I doubt it,” Kaye said. The fresh air made her feel better.

They drove to Spruce Street, and there, at the Mononga-hela Florist Company, Mitch bought Kaye a dozen roses. Walking around the County Magistrates Building and a senior center, they crossed High Street, heading toward the tall clock tower and flagpole of the county courthouse. They stopped beside a spreading canopy of maples to examine the inlaid and inscribed bricks arranged across the courthouse square.

“ ‘In loving memory, James Crutchfield, age 11,’ “ Kaye read. The wind rustled through the maple branches, making the green leaves flutter with a sound like soft voices or old memories. “ ‘My love for fifty years, May Ellen Baker,’ “ Mitch read.

“Do you think we’ll be together that long?” Kaye asked.

Mitch smiled and clasped her shoulder. “I’ve never been married,” he said. “I’m nai’ve. I’d say, yes, we will.”They walked beneath the stone arch to the right of the tower and through the double doors.

Inside, in the Office of the County Clerk, a long room filled with bookshelves and tables supporting huge, scuffed black and green volumes of land transactions, they received paperwork and were told where to get their blood tests.

“It’s a state law,” the elderly clerk told them from behind her broad wooden desk. She smiled wisely. “They test for syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV, herpes, and this new one, SHEVA. A few years ago, they tried to get the blood test removed as a requirement, but that’s all changed now. You wait three days, then you can get married at a church or by a circuit court judge, any county in the state. Those are beautiful roses, honey.” She lifted her glasses where they hung on a gold chain around her neck and scanned them shrewdly. “Proof of age will not be required. What took you so long?”

She handed them their application and test papers.

“We won’t get our license here,” Kaye said to Mitch as they left the building. “We’ll fail the test.” They rested on a wooden bench beneath the maples. It was four in the afternoon and the sky was clouding over swiftly. She laid her head on his shoulder.

Mitch stroked her forehead. “You’re hot. Something wrong?”

“Just proof of our passion.”

Kaye smelled her flowers, then, as the first drops of rain fell, held up her hand and said, “I, Kaye Lang, take you, Mitchell Rafelson, to be my wedded husband, in this age of confusion and upheaval.”

Mitch stared at her.

“Raise your hand,” Kaye said, “if you want me.”

Mitch swiftly realized what was required, clasped her hand, braced himself to rise to the occasion. “I want you to be my wife, come hell or high water, to have and to hold, to cherish and to honor, whether they have any room at the inn or not, amen.”

“I love you, Mitch.”

“I love you, Kaye.”

“All right,” she said. “Now I’m your wife.”

As they left Morgantown, heading southwest, Mitch said, “You know, I believe it. I believe that we’re married.”

“That’s what counts,” Kaye said. She moved closer to him across the broad bench seat.

That evening, on the outskirts of Clarksburg, they made love on a small bed in a dark motel room with cinder block walls. Spring rain fell on the flat roof and dripped from the eaves with a steady, soothing rhythm. They never pulled back the bedcover, lying instead naked together, limbs for blankets, lost in each other, needing nothing more.

The universe became small and bright and very warm.

68

West Virginia and Ohio

Rain and mist followed them from Clarksburg. The old blue Buick’s tires made a steady hum on wet roads pushing and curling through limestone cuts and low round green hills. The wipers swung short black tails, taking Kaye back to Lado’s whining little Fiat on the Georgian Military Road.

“Do you still dream about them?” Kaye asked as Mitch drove.

“Too tired to dream,” Mitch said. He smiled at her, then focused on the road.

“I’m curious to know what happened to them,” Kaye said lightly.

Mitch made a face. “They lost their baby and they died.”

Kaye saw she had touched a nerve and drew back. “Sorry.”

“I told you, I’m a little wacko,” Mitch said. “I think with my nose and I care what happened to three mummies fifteen thousand years ago.”

“You are far from being wacko,” Kaye said. She shook her hair, then let out a yell.

“Whoa!” Mitch cringed.

“We’re going to travel across America!” Kaye cried. “Across the heartland, and we’re going to make love every time we stop somewhere, and we’re going to learn what makes this great nation tick.”

Mitch pounded the wheel and laughed.

“But we aren’t doing this right,” she said, suddenly prim. “We don’t have a big poodle dog.”

“What?”

“Travels with Charley,” Kaye said. “John Steinbeck had a truck he called Rocinante, with a camper on the back. He wrote about traveling with a big poodle. It’s a great book.”

“Did Charley have attitude?”

“Damn right,” Kaye said.

“Then I’ll be the poodle.”

Kaye buzzed his hair with mock clippers.

“Steinbeck took more than a week, I bet,” Mitch said.

“We don’t have to hurry,” Kaye said. “I don’t want this to ever end. You’ve given me back my life, Mitch.”

West of Athens, Ohio, they stopped for lunch at a small diner in a bright red caboose. The caboose sat on a concrete pad and two rails off a frontage road beside the state highway, in a region of low hills covered with maples and dogwood. The food served in the dim interior, illuminated by tiny bulbs in railway lanterns, was adequate and nothing more: a chocolate malt and cheeseburger for Mitch and patty melt and bitter instant iced tea for Kaye. A radio in the kitchen in the back of the caboose played Garth Brooks and Selay Sammi. All they could see of the short-order cook was a white chef’s hat bobbing to the music.

As they left the diner, Kaye noticed three shabbily dressed adolescents wandering beside the frontage road: two girls wearing black skirts and torn gray leggings and a boy in jeans and a travel-stained windbreaker. Like a lagging and downcast puppy, the boy walked several steps behind the girls. Kaye seated herself in the Buick. “What are they doing out here?”

“Maybe they live here,” Mitch said.