Foster felt his body swaying. He was hot by the stove but could not move. He looked down at the floor where the carpet ended and met the floorboards that ran under his feet. As if he could find purpose or reassurance there in the gap between what was covered and what lay under. Feeling the eyes behind his head blank out of the portrait. Wishing they would speak to him, those dead souls. But there was nothing but the blood booming in his own temples. Still looking down he said, “I can’t.”

There was no pause. “Can’t what?”

So he looked up at them because he had to. His voice came from him broken and sad and soft. “I won’t stay here. Not to finish school or go on to college. I guess someway I pretty much hate to tell you this but it’s not what I need to do right now.”

Prudence did not move but Abigail did. She sat back in her seat and crossed one leg up over the other, fluted fingers even as she moved plucking the fabric up and releasing it so the skirt of her dress settled over her crossed legs, all smooth. She rested her head against the back of her chair. “So just what,” she asked, “do you propose to do?”

“Well, ma’am”—and he looked from one to the other before continuing—“I’m going to North Carolina. To Sweetboro. To see what I can learn.”

Abby did not move. But Prudence leaned forward, her hands taking a hard hold of her knees. She cried out to him, “Oh, no. Why would you do that? Foster? Whatever for?”

He stood there rocking silent before them. Because there was nothing he could tell either one of them that they did not already know. And he knew they knew this.

After a time Abby stood and left the room, wordless. He stood listening to her going up the stairs to bed. When she was gone he looked at Prudence. She gazed at him until he turned to her. Then she turned her hands up on her knees and gathered her face into those hands and wept. Still he stood. Until he knew her tears were not short and were not for him alone.