He wanted to ask what it was she had been sitting thinking about. But she was up, brushing her clothes with her hands. She said, “Don’t you have any idea what time it is?”

“It must be eight o’clock or so. Maybe later.”

“You think that’s all?”

“It’s starts getting dark early this time of year.”

“That’s right. Still, I’m awful late.”

“I could come along. Explain things.”

She looked at him, half-grinned. “Explain just what?”

“Well. Maybe distract her.”

“You’d do that all right. No. What you do. Damn it. I was going to build a fire in that stove and warm things over. Listen. There’s a sack of food in there. You two can warm it or eat it cold, I don’t care. But I got to go.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine. Mama and me, we’ll have the ride home to get things worked out. I just want you to go in and eat that food. I can’t stand to cook. And there I was all afternoon in the kitchen, any minute feeling like I might could be sick, just to fix food for you. So you go in there and set down with that old man and eat you that food what was good once, before it got cold. And do your business with him. You’ve got business to do with him, isn’t that right?”

He stepped back, again feeling the faint threat of distance. He could not help himself and said, “When can I see you?”

She stepped up close and kissed him fast. “I don’t know.”

“It’s early,” he said. “I’ve been sleeping all day. He’s an old man. Even if he gets worked up I don’t bet he’s good for more than three-four hours.”

She looked at him. He could tell she wanted to go but still she stayed. Then she said, “You remember how to get out to the crossroads? Pettigrew?”

He nodded, pretty sure he did.

She said, “Between one and two, I’ll do my best to be down along the road. Not right by the house but somewhere along there. If you get out there and don’t see me just drive on to the crossroads and set a bit and then turn around and come back slow. I’ll slip up out of the ditch. If I can get out there. Don’t do it more than twice. Don’t drive by more than twice. Two times, I’m not there, I won’t be. You hear me?”

“I’ll be there.”

“If you’re not,” she said, “I’ll know it’s because you couldn’t help it.”

It was an odd meal. Mebane had it out of the sack, arrayed on the countertop. Wide-mouth jars of vegetables, snap beans and cutup yellow squash and a smaller jar of tomatoes stewed with peppers and okra. A cloth napkin tied around a heap of crumbling cookie-cutter biscuits. And a square tin box that had once held lard or lye or some such now filled with flattened pieces of beefsteak in a thick gravy the color of oatmeal. Chicken-fried steak.