The most solid emotion he experienced was his friendship with his father. It was during this time they came to know each other best, value each other most. It was the time Ezra was most father, and Floyd was most son. It had little to do with words they spoke. There was a thing about being together, a trust, a comfort, a sudden explosion of love more like pain than laughter. Sometimes, as they sat on the creekbank where Floyd used to sit with Leon, it seemed to Floyd that he had never been as close to anyone outside his own self and never would be again. Saying nothing, sitting, watching the water, or the cork on a fishing line, listening to that mysterious life-hum of the creek, an understanding would come to Floyd that this was perfect love. He would never be worthy of such a father; his knowing that Ezra loved him above all others in the world was holier than God and angels. He wanted his father never to get older than he was at this moment. He wanted them always to sit thus side by side. Knowing it could not be only heightened the intensity of the love he felt, so that he had to be careful how much he showed to this man was now visibly getting old, lest Ezra say, “What is it, son? Is anything troubling you?” There was no answer to that except, “No, Papa. I love you.”

For all her free talk of wanting marriage and grandchildren from Pauline and Floyd, Lovey was perfectly content to have things go on as they were. Neither of her children, she thought, was likely to give her any serious trouble. Without understanding them, or wondering whether or not she did, she trusted them.

She worried more about Selma and Leon, whom she thought of as her other two children. She feared for Selma; she feared for Leon; and she distrusted Deborah and her plans for them, because Deborah’s plans were not based on the needs and natures of her children, which she did not in any case comprehend, but rather on what Deborah herself thought might be most appropriate and advantageous. Deborah would scheme and make plans for those who should be left to take their own directions. Lovey could not prevent her, but she could continue to watch and perhaps interfere when a time came that made interference necessary and possible.

5

Selma had lost her purity. No one who has it keeps it, and few even know when they have it, much less care about losing it. Selma held on to hers as long as she was able, but there were many things to corrupt and bend and fragment it, the strongest being, for Selma, a concern for people and things outside herself.