He knew he needed to call Mack but was dreading it and so first he called Clayton at his home in Austin. He held a tenured position at the law school at the University of Texas, teaching constitutional law and holding informal firesides with progressive students at the house he now shared with William’s widow. Clayton was the only one Darren knew who hadn’t been crushed by the election. He’d regarded the outcome with a kind of knowing amusement, nihilism as spectacle. Not a bit of the macabre circus surprised him. America was always going to end up with Donald Trump, he’d said, one way or another. He was in a good mood when Darren called; he thought he’d finally found the final ingredient in his grandmother’s oxtail stew, he told his nephew. Attempting to re-create a recipe that had never been put down on paper was an occasional pastime of Clayton’s. He’d spend days trying different versions, swapping out bay leaves for sage or corn starch for flour. It was an idle and ceaseless pursuit, for there was no way to know if he ever got it just right, if it had been a tomato base or beef broth. It was a childhood memory he was trying to bring to life, and his twin brother was no longer here to weigh in. Clayton was now the last person alive who’d ever tasted that bit of history.

“I need you to do me a favor, Pop,” Darren said.

“Lisa said you’re in Jefferson.”

How the hell had his uncle spoken to his wife before Darren had? “Yeah, I got pulled in on a case out this way, which is why I’m stuck here for another day or two. I need you to handle an errand for me.”

Clayton hollered for Naomi to lower the sound on the TV then took a sip of something that made him suck at his teeth as it went down. Darren could picture him in a loose cardigan, standing over the stove with a glass of whiskey. He hadn’t had a drink since Friday night, but he sure as shit wished he’d had a few before he said, “Pop, I need you to run up to Camilla and pay Mama’s rent.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“I’ll pay you back, it’s just I promised her—”

“What kind of trouble is that woman dragging you into?”

Other way around, Pop. “Just do this for me, and when I get done up here, I can explain everything. It’s five hundred, and you don’t even have to see Bell. You can just run it over to her landlord. He stays in the little clapboard house by her.”