She hates elevators. Her heart is racing, her stomach changes shape. He is not her nephew, he is the nephew of her husband; and his grandmother, the Royal Miz Jonnie Mae Cross Greene, was one of the people who sat back and pointed at her for marrying her drunkard of a brother. Oh, she would help out when Jethro took to the bottle for too long; oh, she’d give her advice about child rearing—specially since she’d been so successful with her four girls and that boy, Lester, that she made a slave; oh, she’d been a good sister-in-law, but she never respected Ruth. Never treated Ruth like an equal. And she had made Jimmy, her grandson, into her own image. She hated them both. But she was a good woman. Jethro had told her, once.

Back outside the air is warm, yet not warm enough to make her happy. As Tisha Anne wishes them a safe journey home, she stares out past the green lawn, over the rise in the valley, over the rest of that emerald hill, beyond the white gravestones and the high wrought-iron gates, and she notes the color of the sky—dishwater grey. She thinks: I want to die under a blue sky.

April 30, 1984 2:40 am

April 30, 1984

2:40 am

Horace sat dumbfounded in the puke-green Buick. He recognized the great black asphalt parking lot just off the east wing of his high school. Why was he sitting here? He could not remember what had brought him here or even driving here or arriving. Suddenly he opened his eyes and he was here. Though he remembered remembering, the church, the baptism, the school . . . the garden? It was neither clear nor chronological, and the images, the shards of feelings slicing at his heart caused him more confusion.

But he did remember the voice, and its seeming plan for him. Where was it? He derived something like comfort in thinking there was a power at work, no matter how terrifying. The course had been lain. Decisions were out of his hands. He was now a pawn.

Dousing the headlights, he stepped out of the car, turning around, half expecting to see someone there. Who? Song lyrics jingle-jangled in his head, Take this hammer, carry it to the Captain . . . He felt a loss. Why? Baffled, he shrugged, finally turning from the car and walking toward the school.