Connie didn’t take her hands away. She said, “Norman treats you good, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. Oh yes.”

“And others?”

Leah paused, letting what was asked settle. “Nobody’s mean. I don’t believe no one intends any meanness.”

“Well, shit on a stick,” Connie said. Leah choked: laughing, still crying. Connie stood and pulled the Boston rocker close and sat leaning forward and asked, “What happened? Was it Mother?”

Like a child sprinting homeward of a hot summer afternoon and sidestepping the basking blacksnake Leah said, “No. No, no.” Connie’s eyes appraised this and let it go. Leah went on, unable, unwilling to check, as if in rupture. “No,” she said again. “I’m not what she wanted or expected and I can understand that. I can even understand that she don’t have any idea how to deal with me. She can’t set across from me and just carry on a conversation but gets all fluttery and curt, as if her mouth opens and her brain chomps the words off before they get out. I can understand that. I don’t mean this like maybe it sounds but I forgive her that. Because I couldn’t tell you how I’d be if I was her. It’s awful easy to think you know how somebody else should be but you ain’t them, never. Maybe I could’ve done different with her too. But I don’t know how and clearly she doesn’t either. So I understand that.”

“Most times, I think, it’s hard between a woman and the mother of the man she marries.” Connie’s eyes off a little distance. Then, “And Norman her only boy. With Father gone I wonder if he could’ve married any right girl. Just so you know.”

Leah nodded. “Mother-in-law’s the price every girl pays. I heard that said.”

Connie smiled. “You don’t have any friends here though.”

“Norman’s my best friend.”

“You’re lucky there perhaps. But—”

“I never had friends even when I was a child. My mama kept me away from the other colored children. Kept me separate. And the white children, they the white children. Didn’t have the time of day for me. At least until I was old enough to be something they wanted to have time for.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean four white boys, big boys, sixteen, seventeen years old, got ahold of me one day. I was twelve years old.”

“Good Jesus.”

“I think that’s maybe why I’ve had such a hard time keeping a baby.”

“Oh good Jesus, Leah. Did you tell Doctor about that?” She shook her head hard.

“Why ever not?” Connie slid back in the rocker and crossed her legs.

“Why not? Why not? He’s a white man and he seen me most naked. It’s not something I wanted to put in his head.”

Connie was quiet with anger. “The bastards. All of them. It’s not just you, you know. Whoever the man, there’s that horn of evil upon him.”

“Now you’re not talking about any man that’s been coming round here to see you. Must be that Manchester man.”