If Tom Cage takes the stand today, he will do so not only as himself, but as a symbol of the secret life of his hometown. And whatever his testimony reveals, Dr. Cage will be telling the city something about itself, perhaps something profound, certainly something necessary. Did Tom Cage kill Viola Turner? If so, did he do it out of fear, to silence her and to protect himself? Or did he do it out of love, to spare her an agonizing death? And if Dr. Cage did not kill Viola Turner, then who did? A violent splinter cell of the Ku Klux Klan? Or could it have been the tortured son born from the illicit relationship between Dr. Cage and his nurse?

Any of those answers, once made real, will become a lens through which the city will view itself, and through which it will be viewed by those outside. My hope is that the truth that emerges from this trial will inspire hope rather than bitterness.

I set down the paper and stare into my coffee, wondering how in hell Serenity managed to get an editorial into the paper from her hospital bed in Jackson. But a deeper question troubles me more. How did Serenity, an outsider, spend only a couple of days in Natchez with my family and perceive truths that I’d not seen myself? Was it precisely because she is an outsider? Whatever the case, Tee has answered the question I posed to Quentin last night at the jail: Why must Dad, after telling me nothing for months, now enter the witness box and tell the town everything?

“Penn, are you all right?”

My mother is standing in the kitchen doorway, worry etched in every line of her face.

“Have you gotten bad news?” she asks. “Has Serenity’s condition worsened?”

“I don’t think so. I . . . was just reading the paper. You should probably skip it.”

“I read it an hour ago.”

“Serenity’s editorial, too?”

Mom gives me a taut smile. “I never said she wasn’t sharp.”

“Everybody decent?” calls Joe Russell, now the leader of our security detail. “We need to leave in ten minutes.”

I hear his footsteps coming up the hall. Reaching out, I take hold of my mother’s cold hand.

“Can you stand one more day of trial?”

Her smile gets a little tighter. “I can stand anything, darling.”