“I’m going to raze this house,” he said. “And build a modern house with concrete floors and modern materials. You can put the heating of a house into the floors now, Rhoda. Did you know that? You can build windows that catch the sun and then you don’t need fires. You can get fire from the sky.” He rounded his shoulders down around his chest and stuck his hands deeper into his pockets. “Shall we go in?” he asked. “Let’s go in now and see who needs us.” I moved beside him. I took his arm, which was fixed deep down into his pocket, and we began to move back toward the house. Cars were still driving up from everywhere. Muted voices and the clink of bottles and glasses from the kitchen flowed out into the yard. It made us a wave of sound to follow. A little path, or current, or drag, or magnetic field. We followed it like pilgrims. Nothing we did or said on that or any other day was going to stain the white radiance of eternity to which Clay had returned his colors.

Later, on our way home from the Morgans’ house, Daddy started in on me again. We were alone in his car, Mother had gone ahead with Dudley and Annie and my younger brothers. “Mighty hard,” Daddy said, as we passed the place where Momma’s car had been dragged up from the ditch. “Mighty hard to know what to do with you, Sister. Your momma said you showed your ass in front of that dead boy’s momma.”

“I did not. What did she say? God, she says anything she wants to about me.”