I close my eyes and swallow hard. Only hours ago I realized my father may have been lying to me for most of my life. Now my mother has told me she’s willing to lie under oath to protect him. “Mom, I really need to talk to Dad tonight.”

“I’ll have him call you when he wakes up. You know he hardly ever sleeps through the night.”

“If he doesn’t call me before midnight, I’m going to drive over there and wake him up.”

“What about Annie? You can’t wake that child on a school night, and you’re certainly not leaving her there. Is Caitlin staying over?”

“No. Mom, please just make sure Dad calls me.”

She sighs with irritation. “All right.”

“I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

The intensity drains out of her voice, which suddenly becomes almost casual again. “You didn’t. I was reading.”

“Did you take a pill tonight?”

“After what happened this morning, that pill might as well be a placebo.”

“Try a different book. A bad book is the best sedative. And leave Dad a note to call me, in case you fall asleep. He’s bound to get up to pee soon.”

“I will. Good night.”

After I hang up, I collapse into my most comfortable chair, my mind across the river with Henry. Hopefully, Drew will call to update me soon.

Though I still mean to go over the autopsy report in detail, my hand picks up the Christmas party photo once more. Why does it haunt me so? Dad would have been thirty-one when this was shot, Viola … twenty-three. Both are looking directly at the camera, and Dad appears tired, as he often did when I was a boy. Beneath Viola’s beauty (which is obvious despite what almost seems an effort to conceal it), I sense something else, as Pithy Nolan once did. Something withheld. Perhaps a black woman with Viola’s power of attraction had already learned that she must conceal that power in the presence of others, or at least around whites.

This afternoon, Pithy Nolan told me it would be impossible to work in close quarters with a woman like Viola and not fall a little bit in love with her. And what did Dad tell me about the 1960s last night? What happened here was a war, too. I can’t help but think of Yuri Zhivago working on the Russian battle front with Larissa Antipov (who is forever Julie Christie in my mind). How could Dad not have been smitten by Viola?