Mrs. Booker pets the cat distractedly. “Eventually. I tried to get her help here.” She nods at me. “I took her to several doctors, but she wouldn’t open up to any of them. Not even Dr. Cage. Your father tried hard, son . . . but nobody could break through that darkness. Dee finally went back to Detroit, with her parents. But she never really got away from that tree. She was beyond mortal help, you see? And she’d given up on God. She had no way back to the light.” The old woman lowers her head. “Dee took her own life about a year after she got back home. Laid down in a hot bath and slashed her wrists. I got a telegram from her daddy. Two lines, that was all. Her family never forgave Sam for bringing their baby south.”

I look at Serenity, who, to my surprise, has tears pouring down her face.

“Why don’t we talk about something else?” I suggest. “We shouldn’t have put you through this for so long.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, baby,” the Cat Lady says, laying her other hand over mine. “It’s Sunday. Pastor Sims will come by and check on me this afternoon. And I’ve got my babies to talk to.” She makes a cooing sound in her throat, and a large gray cat silently springs from some unseen shadow into her lap, taking the calico’s place. The big cat seems to land with purposeful gentleness, as though aware that its owner can’t take much weight.

Serenity gets to her feet, then leans over and kisses the old woman’s hair. “You take care, Auntie. We’re going to leave you in peace.”

Mrs. Booker looks up at Serenity with more alertness than I’ve seen in her eyes for several minutes. “You children are doing good work,” she says. “I can see that. But please be careful. Justice is God’s business. Nothing ever balances out equal in this world. Only in heaven.”

“We’ll be careful,” Serenity promises, and she starts to turn, but the old lady holds her hand tight. “And take a little advice from an old country woman. Most people get snakebit because they tried to kill a creature they should have left in peace. You think about that when you make your plans.”

As Serenity and I walk to the car, the Cat Lady stumps out onto her porch, gripping her walker. Surrounded by circling felines, she watches us like a mother making sure her children are safe until they leave her sight.

After I shut my car door, I say, “The worst story in the world?”

“Not even close,” Serenity says, buckling her seat belt. “But for something that happened in the good old U.S. of A., it’s right up there.”