I gave her one unblinking stare, I took a commensurate swig. “Poor Clyde,” she went on grinning, leaned way back, sipping delighted as a child with her first float at a soda fountain. “He always thought my mother was such a great lady, the old sherry swiller. Oh, she could be very la-dee-da, no question. She had a chintzy, Garden Club kinda charm. Always pretended to look down on Clyde’s nastier jokes, but I noticed she never forgot one. The minute the War broke out, and I mean December 7, Mom became my jailer. Overnight we all felt very patriotic, us young girls. Every boy looks even better in uniform. And they’d looked damn good to start with. I finally got away from Mom at sixteen. The kid I loved first was killed just a few weeks in. But I lucked out. Other men liked me, and right off. One reason I chose Clyde, scared I was in the family way. False alarm from somebody else. But we stuck. He was my standby, such a strange, sweet thing. Till Buck, the current Buck, nobody ever thought more of me or treated me righter. I just wasn’t always up to being worshiped in a house so small in that awful little backbiter town. Oh, but our Clyde himself, now he was something, wasn’t he? And, boy, does he grow on you or what? It’s gotten even better, looking back. Not that he gets better-looking! But such heart always on tap. Man woke up smiling.—Memory lane, hunh? But why Clyde’s people?”

“‘Why?’” I asked, feeling either slightly sick or fairly drunk. “Why didn’t you ever even hint to me about Dad’s race?”

“What race? I know he lost his drivers’ license more than once, but …”

“Race. Aren’t you being coy now? ‘Race’ as in ‘ethnicity.’ You did know that Dad’s famous Aunt Sutie was black, right?”

“Was she? Course I never saw her. Why, did you? I never believed you two boys kept sneaking off just to drop off those ole sad-sack Bibles.—But her being black shouldn’t come as a surprise. Miss Sutie was his ‘mammy,’ Meadows. Any idea how many Southern whitemen worship their boyhood mammies? Those poor old gals all seem to be named Hattie or Lutie or worse. They do all the white folks’ dirty work for years. Their reward is to later get called ‘saints,’ usually as soon they’re off the family payroll.—Look, son, you want another drink? You haven’t finished that one. But it sure looks like you’re ready for a li’l picker-upper. I hear your ice clinking, and the ocean’s smooth as glass.”