We all slept in the examination room that night—me curled on Mama’s lap, and Madame Elizabeth and Lucien collapsed on each other, and Mr. Ben still in his cot.

I woke up first, a little before dawn. It was strange to be awake without Mama, but it gave me time to very carefully crawl down off her lap and creep across the floor and sit, hugging my knees, right by Mr. Ben’s pillow, so I could get a better look at him. Mr. Ben was the first person I’d ever met who had been brought back from death, and I watched him avidly for signs of what Freedom had been like.

I saw where his lips were damp with spittle, and I smelled, on his breath, the dried flowers that my mother had made him eat. And then I had the shock of watching him open his eyes, very slowly, to stare back at me.

“I been awake for hours,” he said.

I nodded.

“You her girl?”

“She’s my mama.”

He whistled. “She must’ve liked her niggers black to get a girl like you.”

I had heard worse. It was the refrain of so many when Mama and I walked in the street.

“Mama says I’m like a mulberry.”

“Yeah, you a pretty little girl—no denying it. Just dark. Where your daddy at?”

“He’s dead.”

“So who else live here?”

“It’s just me and Mama—and her nurse, Lenore, who comes every morning to help with the patients.”

He propped himself up on his elbow and winced. “Lord, I’m dizzy.” He contemplated the ceiling for what felt like a long time. Then he looked to the window that was just beginning to turn white with the rising sun. “She own all of this? From doctoring? Just from doctoring?”

“Mama grew up in this house. Her daddy owned it. He was a pig farmer. We still have some of his hogs, but we don’t raise ’em to sell anymore. You don’t know about his hogs?” I warmed to the telling. What a change, what a delight to have a stranger in the house, someone who did not already know everything about me, as was usually the way with Mama’s visitors. “His hogs used to be famous. Grandfather was very religious, and he taught every hog born under his care to bow its head in prayer before it ate at the trough. He’d say the Lord’s Prayer with ’em, Mama says. A few of the pigs here are old enough to still do it. Sometimes …” I leaned forward to share this secret with my new friend. “Sometimes, I say the Lord’s Prayer really loud when I’m feeding ’em to see which ones will bow. But they don’t listen to me like that.”

This confidence was lost on Mr. Ben, though, because he wasn’t paying attention. He was looking up, over my shoulder, and I turned to see that he was looking at Mama, who had stirred in her chair, and who was watching Mr. Ben back.