I shook my head. “I dont understand. What does living as perfect as Jesus Christ have to do with the Homeplace?”

“Dont you see, Carrie, the Homeplace is lost.”

I stiffened. “Dont say that.”

“But hit’s true, and we got to face it. I dont mean this year or next year, or even ten year from now. But you seen all this and you know it’s true. Because the Homeplace aint Heaven, Carrie. Hit’s part of the creation and hit’s fallen and hit suffers just like we do. And the only way to live on it happy is to love everthing else that’s fallen. And ifn I cant love them gun thugs, God wont call me back to the Homeplace, because I’ll love all the wrong things about it, I’ll love it because they aint no gun thugs there and because there I can turn my back on all the suffering, and I’ll make an idol outen it, and worship it.”

He had raised up while he talked and turned from me, and set his feet on the floor. I touched his back. It was damp with sweat.

“I love you,” he said. “I love you so much.”

We dressed as soon as it was light, then sat on the side of the bed, quiet. Most of our clothes had been lost when we were evicted from the house at Felco. I wore a new dress Flora made me before I left home, pink cotton with tiny white stripes sprinkled with red rosebuds. Albion had on Ben’s suit that I’d brought with me. It was a little short on him, but not too noticeable.

We went downstairs for breakfast. Isom and Gladys were already there. Isom stood up and motioned us to join them. A red carnation peeked from the pocket of his pin-striped jacket. His hair was curly and long in the back.

“Eat up, younguns,” he said. “Hit’s on Daddy.”

“Ermel and Annadel done gone up to the courthouse,” Gladys said.

“Daddy wants a front row seat, and you know that there place will be full as a tick’s belly.” Isom flipped a cloth napkin so hard it cracked, settled it across his knees. “I got me a telegram.”

He dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled yellow paper. “From Rondal.” He tossed it across the table. I read, “Hog-eyed man fiddles too fast for thugs.” It was signed “Sally Ann.”

Isom laughed his short, hacking laugh. “I used to call him Sally Ann all the time. It’s his favorite fiddle tune. I know it’s killing him to miss this.”

A waitress brought heaping platters of fried eggs, ham and red-eye gravy, biscuits and sourwood honey. She lingered by the table.

“Yall the ones being tried?” she asked shyly.

“That’s right.” Isom smiled proudly at her.

“I just wanted to wish yall luck. My daddy was a miner. He was kilt up at Carbon Number Two, ten year ago.” She fidgeted with a button on her white blouse. “Them gun thugs had it coming. Everbody says so, excepting the big shots.”