“Mister—Kendrick,” Roscoe said, his uncharacteristic hesitation arresting Leon. “Would you think it a good thing for me to go too? With you. I have—I am as shocked and surprised as you can be—still, I have—interests over there.”

Leon stared at him. “Yes, come along. It may save time.” They walked away from the house together toward the barns. “Why would you lend him money?” Leon asked with an abruptness that sounded like anger.

The Overseer’s answer came without pause or special inflection. “Why, because he needed it and asked me. I never thought it would go beyond my lending and his paying me back in time.”

“But he signed notes to you, or so his letter to me says.”

“That is true.” Roscoe shrugged, not obsequiously, but as if explanation were unnecessary. “The question of promissory notes may be ignored between those who are equal. But Mr. Anderson did not, of course, consider me his equal.”

Sarah went back along the hall. Sharon was in the dining room clearing the table. She picked up the oval bowl that had held hot grits. The remaining grits were cold and had congealed. Taking a spoon, Sharon turned the molded grits upside down in the bowl and said to herself but aloud, “Slice it, fry it, eat it in redeye, that’s what Mama used to do.” She saw her mistress and ducked her head. “I was just talking to myself, ma’am. For company.”

“I do that too.” Sarah patted her hand and then pressed a finger to a platter to catch a shred of fried ham that had stuck there. Putting it to her tongue, she found it salty and bitter.

3

The other letter Clarence had written and left on the mantelpiece was to his sisters, Bessie and Emily, telling them he was a failure, which they knew in spite of his recourse to a lawyer in Kitesville, and wishing them a happy future life in sentimental and lugubrious language that changed style at the end to advise them in plain words that Leon Kendrick (and not either of their husbands, they were resentful and thankful to discover) would bring his earthly affairs to the best conclusion possible.

Leon found Bessie and Emily when he arrived at the Anderson Farm and went into the house. The body had been removed from the living room to a bed in the parent’s old room, and a sheet spread over it. As Leon talked to them quietly in the living room, Emily’s husband, Amos Mooney, arrived from town, sensibly bringing with him both the sheriff and the man who generally prepared the dead for burial.

An hour later Leon was ready to leave, having said and done as much as he could there. He found Roscoe, who had spent the waiting time looking over the barns and talking to the only male slave who seemed sensible and intelligent. Together they rode into Highboro.