“Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t her voice the greatest thing you ever heard?” He drew near to me. His sweet embattled face above his wide soft powerful body moved in to tell me once again what he needed so desperately for me to know. “Davie discovered it. He brought me here. I want you to meet him while you’re here, Dee.”

“Who is Davie?”

“A boy who’s very special to me. A freshman from Valdosta. I’m gay, Dee. You never listen when I try to tell you that. I love Irise. I’m going to marry her. But I like Davie too. He wants to meet you. You’re going to love each other. I know you will.”

I spun around, pulled a record out of a bin, shook my head, tried not to hear it. I did not want to let it in. I wanted the world to be something I could understand. I was not safe enough to grow into a larger understanding. If I changed my spin I might disappear, be dissolved, sink back into sand, heat, broom, air, as Anna would later write. “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.” Where had I heard that? Why couldn’t I forget it? How did I know it was true so long ago and so encapsulated and so lost?

“What are you all doing in here?” Irise came into the room. “What are you listening to?”

“I thought we were going out to eat.” Malcolm had followed Irise into the room. He came and stood by me. “I thought we were going to eat and then take you to where you’re staying.”

My eyes met Charles William’s around their heads. I didn’t smile or frown. I couldn’t react because I didn’t know what to think. It was very dangerous, what he had told me, and I didn’t want to be involved in danger.