“No, no, Johnny. It’s time I tell the story. The story of you.” Mrs. Cochrane drew in a long breath and let it slide slowly out of her from between her teeth. The hiss of remorse.

“When I was a young lady, like that one with the long hair in your picture, I fell in love with a red beard. Oh, I loved a man that I knew I should not have. I knew he was white and that red colour on him was all the anger that came out of him every day. The anger that painted him red. Red hair all over his body. Even on his back it was like thick fur and not soft fur. Hard fur. I went off with him. Took off South, and I met his brother.

“His brother had the red hair too, but his red hair was like a passion. A passion that was filled with love for the earth. For life. For being alive. I don’t even want to tell how it happened, but eventually I was sleeping with both of them. Not under one roof like in the old times when an Inuit woman had more than one husband. I’d sneak here and there.”

Mrs. Cochrane stopped and crushed her eyelids together tight and drained her tear ducts. She did not wipe the tears from her cheeks. Johnny leaned in and brushed them away tenderly.

“Mama, don’t talk. It’s okay. I don’t need to know anything.”

“They were the men who fathered you and your twin. They were the ones who were your dads. See there in the picture Annie drew.” Her bent fingers swirled around the man in the clouds. “That’s you.”

“But he has a harpoon, Mama. I never touched one.”

“I had twins, and your brother killed himself. I always knew you would be the one who lived on. I always knew that even before he was found dangling off the dock . . . for me it was not a surprise. I knew that in the end, you would be the one to care for me.”

Johnny hugged her hard, and together they cried the way that only a mother and son know how to. The way a mother adores her boy all the days of his life. The longest, strongest bond a man will ever have is with his mother. Wives can’t change that.

Annie moved her weight from one hip to the other. Back and forth. Forth and back. She didn’t want to interrupt. This moment was theirs. It wasn’t about her or the red beards back home.

It wasn’t about rape. It wasn’t about hate. Perhaps she had been dreaming about love.

She was seeing a side of Johnny that she didn’t know was alive. She was seeing a Johnny Cochrane who could show love. Maybe the dreams were meant to bring her here to this. To see Johnny in a different way. Not the guy swaggering down a sidewalk with spurs on his boots. Not the guy with wild hair-washing parties. This Johnny Cochrane had aged into gentleness.