Using a sponge, she swabbed away the blood. She scrubbed gingerly, as much afraid of opening up the old scars as the new wound. In the linen closet off the kitchen, she found a pillow slip and carefully scissored it down the sides, fashioning a long, wide bandage. She doubled it up and wrapped it around Grant. The wound wasn’t bleeding much.

“Have you got a drink in the house?” he asked. “It would steady me down.”

She shook her head. “We don’t keep any. Sam doesn’t use it.”

“That a fact? Your man always leave you alone this late at night?”

“It’s been sort of a special day. Lots of things happening that never happened before.”

He sat at the table, still shirtless. He reached over to the chair on his right and felt in the pocket of his jacket.

“It’s still there,” she said. “You won’t need it tonight.”

“Never can tell,” he said. “What’s going to happen when your man comes home and finds a nigger in his kitchen?”

“Don’t use that word,” she said. “I abhor it.” Without that word, she believed irrationally, what had happened today would have been impossible. “Why do you keep goading me? What is it you want?”

“What I want is to do it differently next time.” There was no mistaking the cold rage in his voice.

“Next time?” She was amazed.

He stood and walked around the kitchen. He put his face up close to hers, and she drew back until she was trapped against the counter.

“Don’t,” she said.

“I wasn’t.” He reached behind her, picked out an apple from a bowl on the counter, and drew out a pocketknife, then backed off. He slit the apple expertly to its core and popped the two halves open in his hand. “Next time, I will not underestimate the white man.” He sliced the apple into quarters and deftly scored the seeds from each wedge, then popped it into his mouth. In less than a minute, he devoured the whole apple. “We always underestimate the white man,” he said wonderingly, as if talking out loud to himself. “We are always amazed at the lengths to which he will go. The things that do not make him ashamed.”

“We’re not all like that,” she said. “You’re not being fair.”

He raised an accusing finger. “I have seen this city today. I am done being surprised. I am done being fair.”

The rain let up a little as Sam wandered down Third Street, dimly aware that he was within a block of home. He walked closer. The rain and cold had sobered him up some, and now his cheekbone ached from Father Dennen’s punch. His shoulder and back were sore from falling down on the jailhouse steps. He had trouble seeing out of his right eye unless he squinted.