Her blouse over her head, she was running her hands through her hair. He could not see that this changed the way it fell. She said, “You don’t know anything about it. What it is, is I carried Mama in to Wednesday night church and brought a sack of food for you two which is all I was supposed to do was come over and get you all fed and then be back there to pick her up. Do you know what time it is? I am god damn dead. She’s setting over there, waiting and pretending not to wait and there’s two or three other ladies setting with her pretending to chat about any god damn thing they can pretend to be interested in but all any of them is doing is waiting to see when I show up, if I show up, and they’ll all each and every one of them be sniffing the air, each one trying to figure out if I’ve been drinking or screwing or both or whatever else they can dream up.”

Foster buttoned his shirt, then reached out and straightened the little gold cross where it was caught bottom end up in the chain around her throat. “Well,” he said, “at least you haven’t been drinking.”

She batted his hand away. “Don’t you make fun. It wasn’t you that rolled in at a quarter to four this morning with Daddy already out in the sheds and Mama setting at the table with coffee already made, me stinking of corn liquor and everything else and cross-eyed and her reminding me that however old I might be or think I was as long as I was living under their roof there was things I could and could not do and I was just about done calming her down when Daddy came in and started up all over again. So I got through that and slept and got up and worked my tail off to make this mess of food for everyone just so they’d let me plead to bring you two stranded odd boys something to eat other than soup out of a can while my mama was at church and me making promises left and right and then here I am and I screw it up, screw it right up. Don’t you make fun with me.”

“Was that what it was,” he asked. “Quarter of four?”

“No it was not.” She was sitting on the bed, lacing her shoes. “I must of left you off here about two or so. I don’t know. What I did was swipe the rest of that liquor jar from your car and rode out in the country and set there stopped, just drinking and thinking. Until some old colored man came along on a bicycle and I knew it was later than I wanted it to be and so got along home.”