I sat with Mama Nelle a while longer, asking her questions about her and Jesse’s childhoods, and that seemed to be where the old woman’s dementia had not yet taken its toll and her memories were the happiest. At one point, Mama Nelle took my hand and held it on her bony knee, and I felt touched by the gesture. I liked sitting there, talking to her. Even though she didn’t mention Anna again, it didn’t matter. She had known the living, breathing Anna. We couldn’t let nobody know nothin’ ’bout her. Why not? I wondered. What was that all about?

By the time Lisa came to hustle me out of the sitting room, I found it hard to tear myself away.

In the kitchen, Lisa introduced me to a stunning woman who was setting candles into a large chocolate-iced sheet cake. Happy Birthday, Mama Nelle was written in yellow icing on top.

“This is my cousin Saundra, Mama Nelle’s daughter,” Lisa said. “And Saundra, this is Morgan Christopher who’s helping out in the gallery.”

Saundra set the last candle into the cake, then smiled at me. Everything about her face was symmetrical, from her perfect eyebrows, to her high cheekbones, to her straight white smile. “Lisa tells me you’re restoring a huge, musty ol’ mural for Uncle Jesse’s gallery,” she said.

“Yes, and Mama—your mother—remembers the artist, which is so cool.” I heard the enthusiasm in my voice. It felt good to be excited about something. “We know next to nothing about her,” I added.

“She does?” Saundra shook her head with a chuckle. “That woman. You never know what she’s going to pull out of that memory bank of hers.”

“Don’t make so much out of it,” Lisa said in the cool voice she often used with me. “Mama tends to make things up these days.”

“Oh, I think a lot of what she remembers is at least partially true.” Saundra stood back to admire her handiwork with the candles. “But oh Lord, I’m such a bad daughter!” She laughed. “I wish I’d written down everything she’s said over my fifty-five years. She has all the family history locked in that brain of hers and we’ve lost it because I’m lazy.”

“You’re the least lazy person I know,” Lisa said, patting her cousin’s arm. She looked at me. “Saundra is superintendent of schools in Elizabeth City.”

“Wow,” I said, trying to sound polite, but I wished I was back in the sitting room, picking Mama Nelle’s brain.

“Mama is the repository for the family history,” Saundra said. “She has land deeds and letters and all sorts of what-not from ancient times tucked here and there in her bedroom, and I know I’m going to have to be the one to sort through all of it when she passes.”

“You could just toss it,” Lisa suggested.