“So—do you want to maybe hint now who my father really was? Because I’d have preferred Clyde over any other flavor.”

“Meadows, Meadows. This why you came? Look, you little prick, who your actual father is, that’s one question. And apart from this new DNA testing, I don’t know if even the FBI could go back and determine that exactly. I always thought of you as Clyde’s. He sure as hell did. It’s true you never were his dead-ringer. But you two were so like each other then. In temperament. You didn’t need to talk. The two of you could just sit there, smiling and humming, for hours. Drove me mad. And you neither could see why I felt more restless than you boys did. But you were little, new here, so I can’t really blame you for that.

“In most all the ways that count, you’re still so damn much his. Even sound like him. Man had the most beautiful voice.—But all that’s on one side. The other is whether our sweet Clyde Delman was a black guy. And maybe whether you are? That why you’re finally bothering to track me down? Look, I saw him naked, saw him dressed. Clyde and I clocked lots of very happy racktime. Whatever your memories tell you about it. He could be a circus in bed, game for anything, an absolute monkey. So—I knew the kind ole thing pretty thoroughly for going on ten years. And to my knowledge he was as white as … well, started to say, as you are. No, as I am. (Which is harder to prove than you might guess.)

“Now, to me right now, you appear to be many things, my Meadows—but several I’m sure of. One: you came out of me down here. And two: you’re at least a good bit of you Caucasian, son. You may not want to be. It’s out of fashion, I know. But, hey, I worked with what was available to Presbyterian white girls, even ‘fast’ ones, back in ’46. Platinum-blonds do tend toward being white people! When you were two, your eyelashes were so blond they were white. What the hell’s your problem, son?”

I explained about visiting Sutie; I told how I’d found Clyde’s older sister in D.C. Definitely not Scotch-Irish, his next of kin.

“Look,” Grace grew testier. Unwowed by my legal brief, she canted forward—her face nearer, over, all but in mine. I could see our crewman at his wheel, watching us far harder. And I, influenced by her to-hell-with-it spirit, now held a pre-emptive middle finger up behind my head, generally clearing the area: protection, privacy, agent orange.