“What do you know? You must be crazy. What are you talking about?”

“I’m going to get those babies away from you, Rhoda. I’m going to make so much money that your daddy can’t protect you anymore. I just want you to know that and you goddamn well better take care of them until I get there.”

“Where are you? Where are you calling from? What in the name of God are you talking about anyway?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Speed told me everything.”

“Speed McVee. He’s been trying to fuck me ever since I met him. He’d say anything. I’m hanging up, Malcolm. It’s clear you’re drunk.” I hung up the phone and went back into my bedroom and got into my bed. Then I got back up and went over to the baby bed and picked up Jimmy and carried him to the bed and cuddled up around him. I was in my own bed in the middle of my father’s house. Nothing could harm me. No one could reach me or kill me or yell at me or be cold to me or impregnate me or cut me open with a knife or hurt me or take my babies away from me. No one could touch me. My father would kill Malcolm if he tried to even talk to me. I was safe. I curled my body around my sleeping child. I listened to him breathing. I smelled the lovely clean smell of his hair. I was so unhappy. I was so confused and terrified and lonely. But it was almost dawn. Already the sun was beginning to light up the skies of Dunleith, Alabama. I was home, in my father’s house, in the land of my father’s fathers. Nothing could harm me ever. No one could get to me or hurt me. I was safe, safe, safe, safe, safe.

“What did Malcolm want?” It was my mother, standing in the door in her soft blue nightgown. She walked toward the bed. “What was Malcolm calling you about?”

“Nothing. He was drunk. Don’t worry about it. Go to sleep, Mother. You’ll wake the baby.”

“I’m worried about him. I want to talk to you, Rhoda. We have to talk about all this.”