The congregation vacated the church in an orderly fashion, from the front to the back, so everyone had to walk past me in the last pew. I knew very few. Ruby, on the arm of her daughter, glanced at me with a look of chagrin. Coralee and her husband, frowning; Serena and her parents. Serena (who knew no better) smiled, waved. A woman who could only have been Terrence’s other sister scowled at me. Mr. Branch, his wheelchair pushed by Ben Tupper, nodded to me sadly. I recognized Mr. Wilkie and his wife. Men and women, black and white, who had served at Summit Drive during Clarence’s long tenure there murmured or nodded as they passed me. As for my own family, Gordon gave me a dyspeptic smile. Irene’s eyes held something that looked like warning. Leon regarded me oddly, as if I were wearing a clown suit and a red rubber nose, utterly out of place here. As for Denise, she merely looked right through me, willing my atoms to disperse under her glare. Quite the best performance I’d ever seen her give.

From the church we all made our way to the parking lot out back, where the sun cooked down on the blacktop. Standing beside my car was Terrence Dexter. He looked thinner, or at least he’d lost the weight he’d gained in Alabama. He wore a smart, double-breasted dark suit, white shirt, and blue tie, with black polished shoes. His face remained serious, but his deep, dark eyes, I could tell, his eyes took me in.

“Is this your car? It looks like your car, but it’s the wrong color.”

“I had to have it painted,” I said, feeling my way around each word as if it were a stone in my mouth. I could not bear to speak of the red paint, the dead dog. Not here. Not now.

“Can I ride with you to the cemetery?”

“Sure.” I did not trust myself to say more. I could feel my birthmark flooding with color. I’m sure he could see it too as I got in behind the wheel and started the car.

The sprightly firefly MG T nosed into line with Leon’s chauffeur-driven Bentley, behind all the other enormous cars with vast tail fins: Plymouths, Dodges, and Chevys. As a cortege, we followed the hearse to the cemetery.

“When did you get back?” I asked.

“I don’t remember. A while. A month maybe. Six weeks?”

“Oh,” I said, disappointed that it had been that long, and I never knew.

“Ruby wrote me how Clarence up and quit the Greenes, that he was dying. Soon as I got her letter, I knew I had to come back. I never thanked Clarence, never even recognized what he did for us after my daddy left, how he stepped in, as best he could. I wanted to thank him while there was time. I wanted to say goodbye.”