“Is that right? Well, I can’t read no more, since my eyes gone bad. I used to take the Reader’s Digest. But ya’ll come on in. And please be patient. I can’t get around like I used to.”

The old lady stumps toward a battered La-Z-Boy recliner. “If any of my babies get in your way, just give ’em a shove with your foot.”

Only now do I realize the house is full of cats. Felines of all sizes occupy every horizontal surface. At least a dozen animals are perched on various pieces of furniture, and two sit atop an ancient Frigidaire visible through a door at the back of the front room. I smell at least one litterbox, but the house doesn’t actually stink, as I would have expected. Maybe Mrs. Booker spends what energy she has cleaning up after the cats rather than doing housework. I don’t relish the prospect of sitting on what looks like flea-infested upholstery, but I do. The cat in my chosen chair seems ambivalent about moving, but it finally surrenders and concedes its territory.

“The chil’ren ’round here call me the Cat Lady,” Mrs. Booker says. “You can see why. Nobody loves these babies but me. I don’t understand why. They don’t ask much from you, and they can just about take care of themselves. That’s what’s special about a cat. A dog’ll love anybody, but a cat’s love is a gift.”

I’m not sure how to start a conversation about a lynching, but Serenity takes care of that. She walks over to a photograph of a strapping man in blue overalls with a bandanna on his head and asks, “Is this your son, Mrs. Booker?”

The old lady laughs. “Lord no, that’s my husband, Lemuel.”

“He’s a handsome man.”

“Yes, indeed. Lem was a good man, too, but he’s gone more than forty years now. Got crushed by a log, loading a pulpwood truck. Chain broke.”

“I’m sorry,” I say automatically.

“My family were pulpwood cutters,” Serenity says. “Cutters, haulers, you name it, they did it. Bleeding for turpentine, if you go further back.”

Mrs. Booker has gone still. Then she squints at Serenity. “Is that right? Where you from, girl?”

“Up around Laurel. Longleaf pine country, back in the old days. All those old trees are long gone, though.”

“Sho’ is, baby. Long gone. And the men who cut ’em gone, too. Pulpwoodin’s a dangerous business, but that’s about all the work there is down in these woods for a black man. Or workin’ at the sawmill. White men do the proper loggin’ ’round here. Always have. Ya’ll push them cats out these chairs and set down. Tell me what you come to find out from the old Cat Lady. Lots of bad things happened ’round here back in my day. Nobody cares about that now, though. Nobody even remembers.”