“He didn’t come to me.” She was speaking hurriedly. Behind her, I could hear the sounds of the hospital, the incessant pages, an ambulance siren. “I was … I was out after church. Wednesday night, you know, midweek church. Daddy was meeting with the deacons after the service, so I left alone. I went for a walk. It was so warm, you remember?”

The record heat for January before the big snow began. Everyone who lived through it still marvels at it.

“I went looking for Lamont. I was so confused, I wanted to see him. And I was pretending it was church business, pretending in my head, the way you do, that I wanted him to come to the youth group and tell us what it was like to work near Dr. King, although Daddy didn’t approve of churches getting involved in social action.”

She drew a shuddering breath, half a sob, then whispered, “I just needed to see him, try to get him to touch me again, the way he had that summer. But, like I said, I was pretending I had some bigger, purer reason.”

Once she’d let her shameful memory out, her breathing came more easily, and her voice returned to a deeper pitch. “I found him, or, anyway, I saw him, at the corner of Sixty-third and Morgan. He was with Johnny Merton, going into the Waltz Right Inn—you know, the old blues joint there? It’s been gone twenty years now, but, back then, it was the center of entertainment in my part of town. Not for me, not for Pastor Hebert’s girl, but for all the kids I went to high school with—”

“So what were Johnny and Lamont doing?” I asked when she broke off.

“Oh, I couldn’t follow them! Daddy would have heard faster than you can spit! I just sat across the street, watching the door, watching kids I’d known my whole life passing in and out. Wednesday was church night, but it was also jam night. Alberta Hunter came sometimes, Tampa Red, all the big names, along with guys starting out. You don’t know how much I wanted to be there, instead of at church.” The phone vibrated from the passion in her voice.

“Did you see them come out again, Johnny Merton and Lamont?”

“Daddy found me before Lamont came out. I was sitting across the street in my coat, even though it was still warm. I couldn’t go outdoors in January without my winter coat, not in my family. I remember thinking how stupid it was, sixty degrees and me in that heavy wool thing, and then Daddy came along. He hit me, told me what a common girl I was, what a sinner, what a bringer of shame, to Jesus and to him, lingering outside a bar like a street girl.”

The words tumbled out like water from a fire hydrant, spraying me with their force.