“Uhh, I’m afraid so. The night before we were due to go back to Chicago, she caught us messin’ a little in the kitchen, and she saw the way it was. Then out of nowhere Cora busts out and says I’m leaving Viola for her, which was complete bullsh— nonsense. I wasn’t that kind of fool. But the upshot was, Cora and Viola didn’t speak to each other for a long time after that.”

“How long, Mr. Jelks?”

“Years.”

“How many years?”

“Eight or nine, I guess. Until Viola got the cancer.”

“And it was during this period that Cora sent you James Turner’s death notice?”

“That’s right. For a long time Cora felt real guilty about me, and Viola wouldn’t ever ease up on her. So eventually Cee got mad. She wanted to prove to me—and to Viola—that Viola wasn’t any better than she was. Hell, I knew Viola wasn’t perfect. But she was as perfect as any mortal woman I ever met, and better than I deserved.”

“Mr. Jelks, two days ago, right there in that chair you’re sitting in, Cora Revels painted a verbal picture of the time when her mother was dying. She described it as a period of special closeness between her and her sister. She said it was then that Viola had confided the secret of Lincoln’s paternity to her.”

“I don’t know about Viola telling Cee that. But I know that time wasn’t any ‘period of closeness.’ Cora spent every minute trying to find excuses to get away from the house to have sex with me.”

A hum of conversation rises, then dies. A rustle of cloth to my right makes me turn, and I can see that my mother deeply regrets allowing Annie to attend these proceedings. But if I know Annie, she won’t be leaving until court has adjourned for the day. Not without making a scene, anyway.

“The day we left town,” Jelks adds, “it would have taken an ice pick for Cora to get one word out of Viola.”

Quentin nods as though he expected this answer all along. “I see. Well, why didn’t Viola divorce you over this incident?”

“I’ve thought about that a lot. She said it was because she wanted Lincoln to have a stable family. But looking back, I think the real reason was she was afraid I’d get mad and tell Lincoln I wasn’t his father. That was her greatest fear, that he would find out the truth about himself.”

“But you yourself didn’t know who Lincoln’s real father was at that time, did you?”

“No. That’s right. But she knew I’d tip to it eventually.”