At four the next morning I left. I went into the children’s room and kissed them on the heads and sneaked down the stairs and rolled my car down the hill toward Sherman Street. I had left a note in the kitchen saying I had gone out to the river house. “Dear Mother,” the note said. “I am doing something I have to do. I’ll call tonight. Leave me alone until then. Love, Rhoda. P.S. Don’t let Jimmy alone a minute at the pool. He is jumping in the deep end every chance he gets and he can’t even tread water yet.”

I drove steadily down to Birmingham, then Tuscaloosa, then Meridian, Mississippi, then Jackson, then down to Natchez and across to Alexandria. I stopped several times to get gasoline. Twice I called Klane’s number but the phone didn’t answer. In Natchez I thought of calling Karla McVee and asking her to go find Klane and be sure she was around when I arrived, then I decided it was better to keep on driving.

I was thinking of Jim Phillips as I drove, of his kindness and his strange gentle power. The Hindus have a story of a man who is wandering in a forest all alone. He falls into a deep hole at the bottom of a tree. In the bottom of the hole is a terrible serpent. The man catches onto a root of the tree and manages to keep the serpent from reaching him. Above the hole wolves and jackals gather for a feast. Vultures circle the sky above the tree. There is a beehive on a branch above the man. A drop of honey is falling from the hive. Slowly the man undoes one hand and holds it up to catch the drop of honey. The honey falls onto his finger and he puts it in his mouth and begins to suck.

Honey of love. For the promise of one drop of this fine stuff I drove across three states as fast as I could drive.

At three I arrived in Alexandria. Jim’s plane wasn’t due until six. I turned off the highway and found my way to the neighborhood where Klane lived. Cars lined the street near her house. People were in her yard. I parked the car and got out and began to walk up the pathway to her house. I could hear the people talking. I could feel their eyes on me. A woman caught my eye and shook her head. A man in a white shirt got up from a bench beside the door and walked toward me. “She’s gone,” he said. “Klane Marengo’s left us.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s dead. She hung herself.” He stared straight at me. Behind him other faces gathered. Children came out the door and stood beside us.