Albritten had a gallery of framed photos on the walls: a solemn-faced man at different stages of life—in high school and college graduation robes, in an army uniform, and then older, with a wife and two teenage children. The children had their own array, chubby babies to Eagle Scouts. A recent picture on top of the TV showed Albritten with a group of other women in front of St. Silas. Albritten was by far the oldest; the youngest might have been in her forties. They were all smiling joyously, holding a banner that celebrated St. Silas’s 150th anniversary: 1864–2014.

Albritten presently reappeared with a silver tray holding two glasses, a plate of cookies, and a handful of dog biscuits. I decided she might find it insulting if I tried to help, so I watched while she arranged the tray on a polished coffee table. She handed a glass to me. Iced tea, which I don’t care much for in July and definitely not in November, but I’ve suffered worse in the line of duty.

“Your dog is well behaved,” Albritten said. Peppy was looking at the biscuits but not standing or making begging noises. “Here you go, good girl.”

She handed the biscuits to Peppy one at a time before sitting heavily in the armchair. “Emerald Ferring. Yes.”

She arranged her skirt over her knees. “Her mother, Lucinda, she came here after her man was killed in the war. There was a big munitions plant here, you see, the Sunflower plant, and they were looking for workers. Lucinda rented the house you were just at, where Peeta and Tiffany and the baby live. It was a long bus ride every day out to Sunflower. My man was off in the war himself, and I had a baby boy. He was three then, Jordan.” She nodded at the photos on the wall. “I was cleaning houses for white families over across the river, and my mother was here, looking after Jordan. It was good company for him to have little Emerald around.”

She gave a surprised laugh. “Her name wasn’t Emerald, it was Esmeralda, but Jordan couldn’t say that. He said ‘Emerald,’ and we—Lucinda and I and my mother—loved it: she was a jewel of a child. I’d forgotten that. She was such a smart little girl, knew her letters when she was three, always asking the deepest questions, about God and life and where was her daddy, and how she was going to be a ballerina or a pilot when she grew up.”