“Go see him, if you don’t believe me. You can tell Peggy you tried to convince Tom to fire me. But it’s a waste of time. Your father knows exactly what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it.”

“Then why the hell don’t you enlighten me, so I can keep my mother from having a stroke?”

“You’re mother’s a lot stronger than you think, boy. She’ll be fine.”

“She’s strong, all right. But today . . . she just about gave out.”

He jabs a finger at me. “Then you find a way to be in that courtroom for her tomorrow. Because things are likely to get worse before they get better.”

A pall of dread settles on my shoulders. “How could they get worse?”

“Things can always get worse. If you came from the same generation as your father and me, you’d know that.”

A flash of anger makes my face hot. Having lost one wife and one fiancée, I feel I’ve endured my share of grief. “I know how bad life can get, Quentin.”

He snorts. “You’ve lost two women, Penn. I feel for you. But you ain’t sick or in jail, and you still got a beautiful little girl to raise.”

With shaking hands I take a step back toward the door, looking over Quentin’s head at Doris, who is shaking her head as though in apology.

“You’ve got half a day,” I tell him. “If you don’t start turning things around tomorrow morning, I’ll find a way to stop this circus. And I think I know somebody who can help me.”

“Yeah? Who’s that?”

I tilt my head toward Doris. Fear and anger flare in her eyes, but I’m past caring about marital intrigues. “If Doris and Mom get on the same side, you’ll be back in Jefferson County before Judge Elder even notices you’re gone. You and Dad won’t have a thing to say about it.”

This gives him pause. “And what if that happens? Who’s gonna take my place? You?”

“I don’t want the job. But I’ll take it before I let you sabotage the trial.”

“You might as well put your daddy on that old gray bus to Parchman this afternoon.”

“Quentin, I’ll put a night-school ambulance chaser in that courtroom, so long as he knows when to yell ‘Objection’ and he can tell hearsay from legitimate testimony.”

Doris marches out of the doorway, circumnavigates the island, and interposes herself between Quentin and me, then begins speaking softly to him, so softly that I can’t make out her words. I start to leave, but in a much more restrained voice Quentin says, “You don’t know anything about the Impressionists, Penn?”

My hand is on the back doorknob. “Some. What’s your point?”