“I’m just glad I was.” He starts to go, then from the door says, “I’ll be here all day, okay? We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

I nod thanks, then turn to Jenny, who has begun shivering. When Rusty puts his arms around her to warm her up, she starts to cry.

“Come on, now,” I say, trying to calm her down. “Mom’s going to be all right.”

“It’s not Mom I’m thinking about. I mean . . . not the stroke, if that’s what it is.”

As I look into my sister’s eyes, I see a well of fear that appears to have no bottom. “Rusty, can you give us a minute?” I ask, not taking my eyes off hers.

“Sure thing. I’ll be right outside. Holler if you need anything.”

Rusty doesn’t wait for an answer, and soon Jenny and I are alone.

“Talk to me,” I tell her, taking hold of her hands, which are limp and clammy.

“Why did he do that, Penn? You don’t believe . . . Daddy really killed her?”

“No. I think he’s distraught over Caitlin and Walt. Viola, too, of course. He changed his plea out of an overwhelming sense of guilt. Survivor’s guilt, you know? Like the Holocaust, or wartime. He wants punishment.”

Jenny nods, but I can see she doesn’t fully accept this explanation.

“What is it?” I press. “What are you thinking about?”

“Penn, I need to tell you something else.”

“I’m listening.”

“The night Viola died, I was in England, of course. But I called the house, and Mom didn’t answer.”

“So?”

“I was worried, because it was early morning in Natchez.”

“How early?”

“Before dawn.”

I start to say “So?” again, but suddenly I understand why Jenny is upset. My mother is not merely a light sleeper; she has lived her nocturnal married life awaiting the late-night phone call heralding family tragedy. She’s always been haunted by dreams of Dad falling asleep and hitting a tree on the way to some distant house during a night call; and once Jenny and I could drive, Mom’s Pavlovian response to the telephone during those hours was forever imprinted in her brain.

“Can you be any more precise about what time you called?”

“That’s the thing,” Jenny says, her brow knitted with anxiety. “Because of the time zone difference, I didn’t think about it much in the beginning. But I called her during my noon break at school. With a seven-hour difference, that means it was—”

“Five a.m., or thereabouts,” I finish. “Viola died at five thirty-eight.”

Jenny shakes her head like a child trying to deny some dreaded reality.

“Did you just call once?”