“You already done have,” she said. “With this.” She lifted our hands and shook them gently. “With this—with this right here. You touched me—and you ain’t pulled away. Nobody touches me no mo’, Kenny-saw. The hospice lady do, but that just a professional touch—it ain’t got no real meaning to it. Naomi do, but that like she cleanin’ up a table, or the flo’ when it dirty. But this.” She lifted our hands again before laying them back on her thin breast. “This here is a human touch, and Kenny-saw, I cain’t tell you what it mean to me. They ain’t nothin’ else like it in the world—the touch of a human hand.”

My throat tightened and my eyes filled. I struggled to contain myself. When I thought I could speak again I asked, “Do you have a minister, Amber? Somebody you like to talk with? Somebody you trust?”

“Naw.” She shook her head. “The one from the church where them ladies come from ain’t no mo’ inclined to me than they was.”

“I know a man, Amber, a good man. A real man of God. A man who loves people the way we’re supposed to love others. If I asked him to call on you, would you like to see him?”

“If you say he a good man, yeah, I’d like to have him come by. I’d like to talk to somebody can tell me what come next, tell me what gonna happen when I leave outta this place.”

“I’ll call him right now if you like.”

“Yeah, go ahead,” she replied.

I reluctantly removed my hands from hers and stood. On the nightstand nearby was a tall fast-food plastic cup with a straw sticking out of the lid.

“Can I get you anything, Amber? Do you need something to drink?”

“I sho’ could use some ice water,” she said, her tongue flicking involuntarily over feverish lips.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, picking up the cup and heading to the kitchen.

I filled the cup with ice and water, then pulled out my phone and punched up a number. Truman Rainwater answered on the second ring. I told him who I was with and gave him the situation. He asked where we were, and when I told him, he said he was just then dropping off a trailer at the port authority and could be there in fifteen minutes. More than that, he knew the neighborhood.

I handed Amber the cup and helped hold it, and put a hand behind her neck, while she took a drink. A few drops trickled down her chin. I dabbed them away with a tissue from the box on the nightstand.

Amber took a sigh and then looked up.

“Now then,” she began. “You want to know about Tonya, ain’t that right?”

“Yes, I do, Amber. Anything you can tell me, I want to hear it.”