“Huh!” Miss Hamer said sarcastically. “I reckon that means you don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“It was your daddy who sent Harold off. Offered him money to just up and leave town. Just disappear.”

Bessie felt suddenly cold. “Offered him . . . money?” she whispered. “How do you know?”

“Because he told me, your daddy did,” the old lady said triumphantly. “Told me his very own self, right here in this room. Bragged that he was goin’ to offer money to Harold to jilt you, and that he knew Harold would take it.”

“But Harold would never—”

“That’s what I said. I told him that Harold was a prideful, stubborn boy, and he had his whole heart set on you. And your daddy laughed and said, well, we’ll just see who is prideful and stubborn—when it comes to money.”

Bessie sucked in her breath. “I don’t believe—”

Miss Hamer pounded her fist on the arm of her wheelchair. “So I told Harold what your daddy had said and he swore up and down to me—yes, right in this room, sittin’ right in that chair you’re sittin’ in now—that he wasn’t going to take the money. He was going to meet your daddy that night and tell him to go to hell. Told me to go to hell, too, when I said to him that he ought to take whatever was offered and leave.” She laughed again, then fell into a coughing spell that went on for a very long time. When she had recovered her breath, she produced a white lawn hankie and wiped her mouth. She said, in a weak, thin voice, “That was wrong of me. I admit it. And I’ve suffered for it all these years. It’s been like a worm gnawin’ at my innards evermore.”

“You told him—” Bessie swallowed and tried again. “You told him to take it?”

“I did. I am not proud of it now, but I did.” Miss Hamer gave a long, trembling sigh and her thin fingers fluttered. “And I reckon he decided to do like I said. He went off to see your daddy that night and never came home, not even to get his clothes. I reckon he was ashamed of lettin’ himself be bought off, which is why he didn’t say good-bye or write to either of us. He was ashamed. Ashamed of takin’ your daddy’s money to jilt your daddy’s daughter.”

“I don’t believe it,” Bessie said fiercely, balling up her fists. “I can believe that my father might’ve offered . . . something. But I can’t believe Harold took it! He couldn’t. He wouldn’t!”

“Dead,” Miss Hamer muttered. “Your daddy dead ten years, and I never knew.” She licked her lips. “All that hatin’, all that time. Wasted.” She dropped her head into her hands and began to weep. After a moment, she lifted her head and began to beat her balled hands against her breasts, and then to shriek. Long, agonized shrieks that made Bessie want to cover her ears.