The house used to be a good home. The foundation was square, not pushed from level by the stubborn frost, jagged lines between the cinderblocks. The walls used to be smooth and flat. No cracks or watermarks showed. The studs were set evenly, sixteen inches on center, and the ceiling joists were adequate. Humble, but sweet. And it was hers. She made the payments, not HUD. She chose it, and for the first time choosing had meant more than simply opting for something over nothing.

People had come. They dropped by. There was no phone in 1961, when they moved to the city. No phone, but when Betty saw the other scattered families at the Lake Street Market or at the Wednesday service, no one ever warned her they would be coming over. No one said they would show up. Doing so would signify to the host that the guest—church friend, cousin, or bus driver—felt uncomfortable visiting, that they did not feel welcome at any time or in any condition.

They stopped by with hams or haunches of deer meat they brought back from up north, with children and smoke and gossip. They dropped by with stories of whose son had been arrested and who had narrowly escaped. They arrived with news of the next batch to come south packed tight, four kids, parents and clothes, in an old Fairlane that burned oil. Sometimes they dropped by and did just that: sat heavily in the metal chairs with loud sighs or hangovers or both, with nothing in their hands to offer except their aching heads. Betty fed them, coffeed them and in that home they felt better, had been cradled by the bickering of the kids and the rush of weak coffee, had been given straight mac and a little love, but not too much. Not so much love that it felt like pity. Sometimes when they came over—mirthful, distressed or lovelorn—they entered to find the household caught in the middle of some domestic distress: Betty pulling Irma and Caroline apart, fighting over their favorite book, or berating Lester and Simon for skipping school and stealing milk from the nicer porches in Kenwood.

These outrages were mild ones, were normal and strangely comforting because no matter what bad luck or situation had brought the visitors up the steps and through the door without knocking, the familial whirlwind they found was predictable and therefore safe. They nodded into the tussle and politely excused themselves to make coffee, content to let the trouble die down.