“Long as it takes.”

“Long as what takes?”

“I don’t even know the answer to that, Roxanne. I don’t know what’s going to happen. It won’t be pretty, but it’s necessary.”

I will remember that night for as long as I live. Knowing he would leave in the morning impressed even the smallest detail on my heart and mind. We had dinner, and I gave him the Christmas present I’d been saving, a fountain pen with a solid gold nib. We made love, and when at last we released each other, sweaty, satiated, the sheets damp with exertion and scented with the tang of passion spent, I held him in my arms. I did not want to sleep. Neither did he. He lit up, and the cigarette glowed in the dark.

“This preacher who’s leading the Montgomery Improvement Association, a Dr. King, he preaches out of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.”

“You think that’s named for your father’s family?” I nudged him gently.

“You think any street in Montgomery, Alabama, gonna be named for a black family?” Terrence scoffed. He smoked in silence for a few moments. “The truth is, baby, I don’t know the first thing about my father’s family. Daddy never talked about Alabama, never told us any stories, except for a few war stories where he was a mechanic in France. None of his Alabama relatives ever visited Los Angeles. A letter might arrive now and then saying that someone had died or married. For a while there would be a fruitcake every Christmas, then that stopped.”

“Didn’t your family have to write to someone when he died?”

“He didn’t die. I know I told you, that first day we met, that both my parents were dead, but it wasn’t true. Really, he might just as well have died. One day he just didn’t come home. His clothes were still in the closet, his shaving mug was in the bathroom—he left everything except the car and family savings. We never saw him again, and never heard a word from him either.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I’ve been saying he died for so many years, it just seemed like it was true. Anyway, what does it matter? He probably is dead by now, and I hardly remember him at all. Except for his hands.”

“What about his hands?”