CORNELIUS: Cause you couldn’t wait to get back at it again.

BELLA: Cornelius, please!

CORNELIUS: Please what? —Your worthless son and this pregnant tramp here? I want them out. I say out!

BELLA: Don’t mind what he says. Cornelius is sufferin’ more than he knows from our loss.

CORNELIUS: No loss to me. —A relief! Relief to him and t’ me! Deliverance.

BELLA: Oh, God, don’t say that, that’s—

CHARLIE: Like him, Mom.

BELLA: No, no. Your daddy cared about your brother, I know he cared for Chips, for, for—Chipton deeply, very deeply, so deeply he couldn’t touch food on the plane home from Memphis.

STACEY [Picks up framed table photograph]: Is this—?

BELLA: Yes, yes.

BELLA: —Chips. —Chipton. —Chipton McCorkle, the second, named after his granddaddy. —Cornelius just didn’t—

CORNELIUS: Didn’t what?

BELLA: Understand.

CORNELIUS: Understood too much!

STACEY [taking photograph]: Very good-lookin’ young man.

CORNELIUS: Not good-lookin’ but pretty like a girl!

BELLA: Don’t.

CHARLIE: No, don’t Pop!

STACEY: Don’t. I know boys like this.

CORNELIUS: Still looked pretty as a girl laid out in his casket. So you know his kind huh?

STACEY: Yes, I know boys like this. They used to flock to the Goose and Gander, an after-hour place where I was employed as waitress befo’ my engagement to Charlie. Yais, boys like this come there when the bars closed for our fifty-nine cent breakfast of aigs, sausage, and grits, and biscuits, horse biscuits with sawmill gravy and with chicory coffee.

BELLA: Well, now. She cooks.

STACEY: I made acquaintances with them, sympathized with their problems, and gave them advice.

CORNELIUS: What advice?

STACEY: I always advised the couples to stick together, not—

CORNELIUS: Sashay around?

STACEY: No, settle, make homes together.

CORNELIUS: Promiscuous relations is what they live for.

STACEY: Only some, not all. I know of some had permanent arrangements. And I brought some to Jesus. I’m a bawn-again Christian.

CORNELIUS: You are a what did she say?

CHARLIE: Stacey’s a born-again Christian.

STACEY: LET’S PRAY TOGETHER! WE ARE LOST SHEEP, ERRED AND STRAYED FROM THY WAYS, BROKEN YOUR HOLY COMMANDMENTS, ENGAGED IN FORNICATION, HAVE MERCY UPON US, FORGIVE US OUR CARNAL DESIRES AND LEAD US BACK TO THE FOLD. MERCY, HAVE MERCY UPON US THAT YIELDED TO THE TEMPTATIONS OF THE FLESH, YES, JESUS, WE IMPLORE THY FORGIVENESS! THY DIVINE MERCY, CHRIST! MAKE US FIT FOR SALVATION! DESERVING OF LIFE ETERNAL, LAWD, LAWD, SHOW US THE WAYYYYYYYYYYY!

CORNELIUS: Shudderup, goddam it, help me outa this chair.

BELLA: Honey, let’s pray QUIETLY together.

CHARLIE: Stacey, Mom says quietly.

BELLA: It don’t have to be quite so loud!