Alice and Adam Devers had expected to get the barn apartment, but instead they’d been stuck living in that teensy house with her parents. And Adam had to teach with the colored man who got their apartment. Had to share a desk and a lab with this man—a teacher so popular that his students could remember his lesson plans thirty-eight years later—a man whose presence was so revolting that the landlord intended to repaint after he left.

Alice had said, No, we didn’t go over—we don’t gawk at fires. But they were in that photograph, staring at the fire along with the rest of the neighbors.

Could Adam Devers have been the arsonist?

Macey had found it hard to credit that white people in Arkansas and Mississippi and Georgia and North Carolina had been so brutal. She could hardly imagine the stoning of black children, the closing of schools, the rioting, the lynching. She could believe it only in a history-book kind of way.

She had not believed that it could happen here (where, everybody pointed out, we were always civilized). Even after all her research and pondering, she had not believed. And here it was.

Oh, Adam Devers! she thought. You did a terrible thing, and you knew it, and you had no way to undo it. So you had to undo yourself. You celebrated the anniversary of your fire. You buried yourself.

Macey took a handful of Nilla Wafers for sustenance and made it to the hall. Then she took up a floor position on the carpet, for no reason except her legs felt too weak to carry her home.

It was not Nana and Papa who had lit the match.

It was not Austin’s grandmother and grandfather.

She ought to feel pretty good, knowing that she did not have an arsonist in the family; that whatever else their true colors were, they weren’t the colors of people who tried to kill by fire.

But even though she had probably found out the truth, she did not know anybody who cared.

Nana and Papa, Mr. and Mrs. Fent, Mom and Dad—all six of them didn’t care.

He wasn’t our kind, so who cares? Stop being dramatic about this, Macey—the guy is black. We didn’t care what happened to him in 1959, we didn’t care once in all the years that came to pass, and we sure don’t care now in 1997.

I care, thought Macey. If Venita hadn’t died, would I care? If Mrs. Loomis hadn’t sent a letter, would I care?

And what good does it do to care? Caring doesn’t change anything.

She braced her hands on the carpet to keep herself rigid and controlled. She felt like carpet herself: low, muddy and stuck to the floor. The last time she’d sat here, it had been with Austin.