“Thank you for putting me back on course, Judge,” Quentin says, all amicability again. “Let’s get down to the facts that Mr. Johnson has been making such a fuss about. We all know by now that a romantic relationship existed between Dr. Cage and Viola Turner in February and March of 1968. The district attorney has done his best to make that relationship sound sleazy, as though Tom Cage were the kind of slavering, lecherous white man who liked a little dark meat on the side when he could get it.”

The crowd gasps, and the judge steps in again. “Watch your language, Counselor.”

But Quentin refuses to back off. “Judge, can we not be frank in this forum? We’re all adults here. Can we not use the language that accurately portrays the situation?”

The jury clearly agrees with Quentin, but Joe Elder says, “Mr. Avery, you’ll remain within the bounds of propriety or suffer the consequences.”

“All right, Judge. Well . . . we all know the kind of man I was talking about. But Tom Cage ain’t that kind of man. In forty-five years of practicing medicine, not one sexual harassment claim has ever been made against him. And during all those years, he’s had several black female employees, all of whom are willing to come forward and testify to his good character.

“So. What caused this illicit relationship? Do we need Sherlock Holmes or Sigmund Freud to figure it out? No. I doubt anyone knew Tom Cage better than Viola Turner, the exceptional nurse who worked at his side during the troubled 1960s. Now, I don’t know what problems might have existed in Dr. Cage’s marriage.” At this point, Quentin looks pointedly at my mother, who stares straight ahead like a graven image of the long-suffering but loyal wife.

Was that look prearranged? I wonder.

“All marriages have their strains,” Quentin says with regret, “and we never know what’s cooking in someone else’s pot. But take a moment to imagine poor Viola Turner learning that her young husband had been killed in Vietnam. Imagine that young widow enduring a year of terrible loneliness while her brother did dangerous work for the civil rights movement. Picture this dedicated young sister working at Dr. Cage’s side each day, witnessing his unique commitment to helping people. Her people. And not with cocktail party rhetoric, mind you, but down in the trenches, where it mattered. Is it not easy to see how strong feelings might develop in that kind of situation?”

It would be just as easy, I realize, for a modern-day jury to read that situation as sexual harassment. But today Quentin will benefit from Mississippi always being ten years behind the times.