“It was two of them she was talking to. That’s what confuses me. Because with both it was argument, like I said. But the tone was different. Like the one she was adamant with, clear with hatred, and the other almost as if cajoling. Or pleading. That’s a better word. As if explaining herself away, some guilt. I felt she was talking about the same thing, something that happened. Something bad it was, too. And I felt she was talking to the one person it happened to and the other that caused it to happen to the first one. All right? I felt like she was speaking to a dead person and one still alive.”

“Yes.” Norman interrupted. “The dead person would be her half brother, a white man. The other I guess would be her mother. Your grandmother.”

Abby shook her head. “I don’t believe so. I think that’s wrong.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because both people were men. I’m sure of that. What was the half brother’s name?”

“Alex. Alexander Mebane.”

She shook her head. “No. The dead person she called Peter.”

He fingered his trousers over his thigh. “Peter,” he said. “You sure of that?”

“I’m sure.”

“You know who Peter was?”

“Yes. That old colored man helped her when she ran away.”

“And what did she call the other one? The one you felt to still be living.”

“You. She called him You. She never used any name.”

“All right,” he said. “Now you’ve got me confused. Tell me what she said.”