“What’s wrong with you, gal? Who do you think should have come from Branson to tell you he’d been killed so you could attend his funeral? Me? Pffft. You’re lucky I’m here now. If I hadn’t come, you might never have found out why he stopped coming over here. You and him had already made a big fool out of me. You think I’d have let y’all cause me even more shame and pain by seeing you at his funeral, and having everybody know how you and him made a joke of my life?”

“I . . . how long have you known about me?” she asked with tears streaming down her face. Her voice sounded so meek now and she looked so beaten down, I almost felt sorry for her.

“I just found out last Friday. All this time, I had no idea.”

“Who told you?” she asked, choking on a sob.

“The same people who died with Odell.”

Betty Jean’s jaw dropped so low, her face looked as long as a lantern. “What—”

I held up my hand. “That’s a story too long and painful to tell, and I don’t have all the information anyway.” I tilted my head to one side and squinted, glad to see that she was looking as miserable as I was. “You and Odell caused me a lot of grief. I hope he was worth it.” I didn’t wait around to hear anything else Betty Jean had to say. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I started walking as fast as they could carry me. When I reached the end of her yard, I stopped and looked back at her. Betty Jean was perched on her porch steps, crying like a whupped baby. I took a deep breath and started walking again and didn’t stop until I got back to the bus stop.

* * *

Odell’s daddy died of a massive stroke two days before Christmas. Ellamae managed to get in touch with his other children. They came and took his body back to Birmingham, where he would be buried. I didn’t hear that news until Christmas Day, when Buddy came to my parents’ house to eat Christmas supper with us. He also reported that Aunt Mattie had told him Willie Frank had found Jesus (again) and abruptly stopped making illegal alcohol. He offered to marry Sweet Sue if she would stop selling her body. She jumped at the chance (she’d found Jesus, too). Since it was against the law for colored and white to marry in Alabama, they boarded a train on New Year’s Day and went to live with her sister in New York.