I sat up, my face covered with sweat, and looked at her, the representative, the symbol of all I held dear in the world, the very personification of my faith, my respect, my reason, here, before my eyes was my own fallibility, my own weaknesses and strengths, color began to fade in the world, and I knew distantly that I would grow old and grey and that there was not a damned thing I could do about it, and that I was small and vulnerable and bruised oh, so easily, and that the things in which I had put my trust were only as strong as the trust I had put in them, and that ultimately I was alone and unknown and unknowable, just as she was unknowable, alone, across the room at that moment puzzled by my silence and afraid, and I opened my mouth, and released my fear, my pain, my hurt in mounds of stench and food all over the clothes and yarn and needles and wrapping paper.

“Oh, my God. Jimmy.”

Place: The dining room in the home of Jonnie Mae Greene.

Time: Thanksgiving Day, 1983, 5:15 P.M.

EZEKIEL CROSS sits at head of a long table; REV. HEZEKIAH BARDEN sits to Zeke’s left; JIMMY GREENE sits on the right; LESTER GREENE sits in the middle; JONNIE MAE sits on the opposite end to ZEKE. RACHEL, REBECCA, and RUTHESTER go back and forth in the kitchen bringing out dishes and plates. The table is set with white linen and covered with food; a plump turkey sits in the middle. The room is full of family pictures. Old sepia-tone photographs of stern-faced men and women, all unsmiling. Polaroids. Graduation portraits. The voices of the three sisters husbands are heard, faintly, from the kitchen.

ZEKE (to REV. BARDEN): But I don’t necessarily believe we should be raising money for that purpose. A church’s first duty—

JONNIE MAE: Zeke—excuse me, Reverend, for interrupting—but Zeke, where is that grandboy of yours? He knows we start Thanksgiving dinner at five sharp.

ZEKE: I don’t know, Jonnie Mae. He said he had to do something with his friends. Said he’d be here on time.

JONNIE MAE: Well, he ain’t. “Friends.” You mean them white boys he been hanging round with?

ZEKE: I spect.

JONNIE MAE: Zeke, you better have a talk with that boy. It ain’t doing him no good to take up with them boys like he’s doing. People start to talk. And I don’t like it.

ZEKE: Well, I aim to.

RUTHESTER (placing the cranberry sauce next to the turkey): Well, you all had better start now. It’ll get cold. We don’t want that.

BARDEN: No, ma’am. We don’t want that. Do we, Reverend? (He winks at JIMMY.)

JIMMY (slightly preoccupied): No. No, we don’t.