“There was a before and after. One time, one place, one me. Another time, another place, some other me. Stupid bitch. That’s what you ended up with. Stupid bitch. Don’t go feeling sorry for yourself. Don’t shrink from the truth, Norman. Stand up to it like a man and stand there, watch it tear you down, bit by piece. Like them old stone buildings blasted by the sword. I always saw that happening like a thunderclap, lightning strike. But you know something? It wasn’t never one like that I bet. It was all that fine old rough stone falling apart crumble by crumble, each little chip torn off by some fool passing by. Not even knowing they doing it, all wrapped up in theirselves. Not even notice the dust and chips fall behind they pass. That’s how it is. That’s all they is.” Her eyes still closed.

He crossed to her now, his boots inches from her shoes. He did not trust himself to bend and touch her. He wanted to strike her, smack the side of her face. Open her eyes. Make her open her eyes. His voice soft like cat’s-paws, he said, “It can’t be as bad as you make it. All pent up, that’s half of it. Or more than half. You got to tell me. You tell me about it, it won’t be as bad as you think.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him, briefly. Then cut her eyes to the same window he’d looked out earlier. “Trouble with you Norman is you ain’t got the nerve to tell how you feel. Or see how things are. You think it’s all just you and me. It ain’t that at all. It’s people after people, each one nothing to the next. You don’t care bout me Norman, you care bout you. Even them children you worked up over, that’s all just cause they look to you. Otherwise, they some children over the hill somewhere, you wouldn’t care nothing. Don’t rile on me, you know it’s true. Man, woman, we all just a fake thing. Carry on, great importance, nothing. Simple as that. Nothing but grime under some other body’s toeprint. Nothing but waste. Everthing, it come down to nothing. Nothing at all. We just fools, otherwise. Old brother Jesus, maybe even He the biggest fool. Maybe took Hisself a little too serious. Maybe His Father, He still sitting holding His head in His hands over what a fool His son was. Maybe He don’t even care about what we all think, He so caught up in grief over how His child turned out. You ever consider that? You look at it that way, you got to wonder. How else could it be?”

Norman said, “Shut up with that. Shut that kind of talk.”

She perked. “What talk that be? You Jesus working on you?”