“I thought, Here’s this person come who doesn’t know me at all. Who’s never laid eyes on me, never heard the first thing about me. But who’s some part of me. Not the distant cousin part so much as maybe the one who would recognize me, who would know me. I don’t know what made me think it would be you but I did. Maybe some way Uncle Lex talked about you. Maybe just something I thought I heard. You know what I mean, Foster? You know?”

He looked at her then, seeing not just her but himself as well, the two of them in the dark on the bank of the river. And knew just what she was saying and at that moment did recognize her, as if each part and line and tissue of her was known to him. And was frightened now truly for the first time. He thought if he didn’t get his hands into her hair, along her arms, hovering over her face, he would lose the ability to draw breath. So he looked from her to the river and was quiet.

She took her hand from his knee then. He did not know what this meant. She took the fruit jar from him and drank a little bit from it and rocked on her haunches and he wanted to reach and steady her, just his hand along her shoulder, her upper arm, but he did not. And she said, “You can’t ever tell, can you?”

Then she rose without warning and he rose up with her and both unsteady, turning and reaching out for each other, hands on forearms, elbows, holding each other upright, steadying, not touching otherwise. Her breath against his face, warm and sweet with corn and the faint edge of charcoal. Then she said, “Oh,” and let him go and turned to walk up to the car and he followed her, lifting up the fruit jar forgotten on the riverbank. She went around the side of the car and got in the passenger seat. He stopped in front. The moon breaking apart fleet clouds driven by some high wind, the air down below still. He looked at her through the windshield. He took the lid from the jar and drank a little bit. Then went around and got behind the wheel.

She was low in the seat with her knees up against the dash, her dress pushed between her legs. She was smoking one of his cigarettes, lazy smoke dribbling from her mouth as she turned to him and said, “Tell me something, Foster?”

“What’s that?” His voice rough, torn with itself.

“What’s the craziest thing you ever did?”

He did not have to think about that. “This right now. I mean coming south chasing after something happened a long time ago to somebody I never knew. Some part of me feels like it’s all for someone else, I mean for my grandmother. I guess I’m trying to figure out what it all means to me.”