The persistent calico jumps soundlessly into Mrs. Booker’s lap and settles there. The old woman sighs in surrender and scratches the animal between its ears.

“Sam was a hardworking boy,” she says. “Lots of ambition. He left Athens Point and moved north just as soon as he was old enough. He worked in Detroit, Michigan. Sam didn’t like being too far away from me, but work here was slow. After he’d had enough, he came back home. But he wasn’t alone. He had a woman with him. A wife, I should say. Dolores. We all called her Dee. Sam had married her up there. She was young and pretty, which was all fine and good. But she was also white, which wasn’t.”

This catches Serenity’s interest. “Your son married a white woman up north?”

“Well, I thought he had. And so did everybody else ’round here. Dee’s skin was so light, and her hair so straight, that she could pass, you know? Without even trying. Much lighter than you, baby. Up in Detroit, most people just treated her white, and she didn’t bother correcting them. Didn’t hurt nobody, did it? But Dee was proud of her family, and she didn’t mind saying she was black. Her daddy was black, and she loved him. Though I don’t think she quite knew what it was to be treated black. Not Mississippi black, you know?”

“Oh, I know,” Serenity says softly. “Did Dee tell people here in Athens Point she was black?”

Mrs. Booker nods sadly. “That’s where the trouble started. Dee lived black here from the start—went to the colored church and doctor—but the fact was, nobody believed her. Not even black folks. She wasn’t even high yellow, to look at. Dee was so fair, people just thought we was lyin’ to cover up the truth. White folks started sayin’ my boy didn’t know his place. Said he’d gone off north and come back with biggity ideas.”

I’m suddenly sure I don’t want to hear the rest of this story. But I can’t see how to avoid it. Nothing would make Serenity leave this house now.