“Yeah,” she agreed. “I do. But we’re supposed to have an early dinner and then I thought maybe you or Matteo could drive me over to Aunt Jewelle and Uncle Jackson’s house after. I’m babysitting and spending the night. And maybe I could talk French with Uncle Jackson.”

The cowardly genius, Jackson Blue, was fluent in eight languages—not including computer binary and pure mathematics. There was a time when I wouldn’t have turned my back on Jackson, but, in spite of common logic, some people do change. His wife, Jewelle, once married to my deceased property manager, Mofass, was one of the strongest-willed and most brilliant people I had ever known. Jackson made something of himself through love of Jewelle and depth of mind.

“I took on a job today,” I told my daughter.

“The one where the guy had the mental breakdown in your office?”

“He’s a vet and I feel for him. But that means I might not be able to pick you up.” This simple refusal saddened me.

“That’s okay. I already asked Matteo and he put it in the book. I was gonna ask Uncle Jackson if he’d take one Tuesday afternoon a week to do French with me and Pookie.”

Michelle “Pookie” Fontelle had been born in Lafayette, Louisiana, and came to Watts with her mother, Morona, at the age of nine. Pookie was a math savant and maybe an even better artist. Morona had survived situations that would have destroyed most men, just to get her daughter into that school. And it was obvious that Feather wanted to get her fourteen-year-old friend in a dialogue with her “uncle.”

I sighed and shook my head slightly.

“What’s wrong? You don’t want me to go?”

“Why are you wearing that dress?”

“You don’t like it? Aunt Jewelle picked it out for me.”

“It’s just kinda grown-up for a girl your age.”

“I know, right?” She smiled, stood up, and twirled for me. “But the Kolors are having a cocktail party and Anita asked me to wear something pretty. She said then she wouldn’t feel funny.”

When I was a young man in Houston, women could wrap me around their fingers. All a girl had to do was whisper my name and I was ready to throw down. Feather had that impact on me, but I was sure she’d rather die than lie to me. All this instilled a feeling that I couldn’t exactly describe.

I was trying to put that feeling into words when the phone rang.

My demure and sophisticated daughter leaped up from her stool again and ran for the wall phone yelling, “I’ll get it!”

I could relax. For the next little while Feather would be a child again and I would be released from the parts of my mind that were shrouded in fears for her safety.