About Charles William’s tomb. When he found out his heart was failing him, he went straight down to the Dunleith Funeral Parlor, the black funeral home that he designed and built after the old brick one burned down, and picked himself out a coffin. It has The Last Supper in raised figures on the inside of the coffin lid and he is resting in it now. “I’d had my eye on it, Dee,” he told me when he called me with the news. “I told Spavineau, Spav, you know I’ve been wanting it. How much do you want down to hold it for me? So, of course, she burst into tears. Don’t cry on the lining, please, I told her. Unless you want to come down on the price.”

Part One

DUNLEITH

Chapter

1

“We’re moving to Dunleith, Alabama.” It was my momma on the phone. I was a freshman at Vanderbilt and I had just completed my next-to-last swimming meet of the spring semester. I was sitting in my room letting my roommate cut my hair when my mother calls me up to tell me this dreadful news. “Why?” I screamed. “What is he doing now? What are you going to do?”

“He wants to move to Dunleith. He wants to go back to the South. I want it too.” There was something strange in her voice. My mother was never forceful, but this was forceful. “Wait a minute. He wants to talk to you.”

“I’m getting my hair cut. Lilly’s cutting my hair.” She had followed me out into the hall and was standing beside the phone booth with the scissors still in her hand. At that time there were not many telephones in the world and people had to go out into the hall to answer them.

“Sister.” It was my father. “Sister, don’t go starting one of your fits now. Your mother and I want to move back to the South. We went down to Dunleith last weekend and bought a house. I’m going to bring you a car so you can drive down there when school’s out. When do you get through up there?”

“Don’t you want to know about the meet? I came in first in three events. Don’t you read the papers? You didn’t even call to see if I had won.”

“Of course you won, Sweet Sister. Now settle down. Dunleith’s only twenty miles from Aberdeen and we can be near your grandmother. Your mother bought a fine big house and you can help her fix it up.”

“I don’t want a house. I’ve lived in five towns since I was five years old. I don’t know where I live. You drive me crazy, Daddy. You should have told me. You should have asked me if I cared.”