The Roadmasters’ request, anyone moved to do so by these tales having been told, that they donate to their local nonprofit legal services or child abuse organizations, or they can send their gifts to Childhelp and/or the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

NOW

The Family

Interviewer’s Impressions, Recorded After Event:

Just before Lyla’s final interview completes, McCade uncurls from around his wife and exits the daybed with the tiger cat in his possession.

It does not escape notice that the gray cat keeps a distance, but trots behind him.

After we finish, Lyla reiterates the invitation to stay for chili.

She then pushes from the daybed, and I follow her through the door into the inner sanctum.

A massive room confronts me.

A room filled with windows.

Furniture.

And warmth.

We are immediately in a large kitchen over which is a tall ceiling made of angled skylights, ten of them—five facing five—buttressed braces spanning the overhead space.

There are butcherblock countertops and barnwood paneling.

A top-of-the-line range sits in a hearth of carefully laid river rock, the back of the hearth, behind the stove, is fashioned of brick.

There is a long dining table that seats ten beyond an island made of glossy black cabinets with a startling white farmer’s drop sink in the middle. The table sits in front of a window which both the tiger and gray cat are perching on the ledge of, their tails curling and unfurling, their gazes aimed outside.

I look out the window and see McCade and his son in the gently sloping front area with all three dogs, including the Maltese.

They are at work at a large firepit surrounded by rocks beyond which is a circle of a goodly number of Adirondack chairs.

Lyla goes to the stove and lifts the top from a very large, very shiny pot.

When she does, I feel the need to check my notes.

It is my understanding Lyla and McCade have two children: Jesse Baptiste, aged eighteen and Evelyn “Lynie” Loretta, aged sixteen.

The large dining room table and that pot, not to mention a living area with a long couch and a number of comfortable armchairs with and without ottomans aimed at an enormous TV and/or a fireplace that currently has a crackling fire indicate a much bigger family lives in this house.

Lyla picks up a spoon, stirs, and a rich, spicy aroma fills the air.

Lyla then moves to the front door that sits between kitchen and dining area, opens it and shouts through it, “If Bobby McGee gets filthy, I’m not the one giving her a bath!”

I look to the window.

McCade just tips his head back from being bent over, laying logs in the firepit, and grins at his wife.

His son shouts back, “Lynie will do it!”

Lyla closes the door and looks to me.