And I loved my mother, though I can see now with the gift of hindsight that my love for her was very selfish and self-absorbed. This is true for most children, but I think it was worse with me. I had become so consumed by my own wishes and desires that I had never entertained the possibility that she might have wishes and desires too. The discovery that she’d had a life of her own, of which I had been ignorant, filled me with jealousy and resentment—of her, more even than of Mr. Haltom. For so long, I had taken her love for granted, and had even felt superior to her, as if all the good fortune that had befallen her was the result of her connection to me. I now knew the opposite was the case—that everything had come to us because she had finally found the perfect man to lift her out of the gutter into which my arrival had cast her.

“Can I use your phone?” I asked.

I called Arch first, but he didn’t answer. I dialed the number for the Haltoms and held my breath. To my great relief, the voice on the other end of the line was Shirley’s.

“This is Charlie,” I said. “Is Vanessa around?”

I heard Shirley call for her and hand her the receiver.

“Hello?” she said.

“Do you hate me?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “God, no. Of course not.”

“Then please,” I said, “please come.”

“I’m on the way,” she said.

We drove along the Natchez Trace Parkway in silence—the same road we’d traveled just a few weeks before, though it looked much different in daylight.

“It’s very French, don’t you think?” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Men have mistresses in France all the time. Separate families. Their wives often know about the mistresses. They don’t care. It’s just an accepted part of the culture.”

“This isn’t France,” I said. “And your mother cares.”

She pulled the car into an overlook.

“Do you hate me?” I said.

“You already asked me that.”

“But do you?”

“You’re one of my dearest friends,” she said. “You know things about me that no one else knows. Nothing could ever make me hate you.”

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Move on, I guess.”

“You’re much better at moving on than I am, I think.”

“Don’t be mean.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I mean it. I’m not good at getting over things.”

She pushed her sunglasses onto her forehead so I could see her eyes.

“Who says I’ve gotten over anything?” she said.

“You don’t show it.”

“It isn’t easy.”

“How do you do it?”