During his first fifteen years in Natchez, Dad practiced in a sprawling downtown house. This was the era of separate waiting rooms for “colored” and white, but his only nod to this convention was a flimsy wooden partition set up in the middle of the room. On any day you could find whole families—white and black—camped out in that great room, kids playing on the floor, parents eating from bag lunches and waiting to see the doctor on a first-come, first-served basis. His new office, convenient to both hospitals and sterile as a hypodermic needle, runs like any other doctor’s—almost. He has rigidly scheduled appointments, a gleaming laboratory, and modern X-ray facilities, but he still routinely brings everything to a standstill by spending whatever time he feels a patient needs for examination, commiseration, or just plain conversation.

At last his strong baritone filters around the door. The volume tells me he is bidding farewell to a geriatric patient. Old people comprise the bulk of his practice now, as his “patient base” has aged with him. Anna leans in and gives me a smile, then closes the door behind Dad. He squeezes my shoulder as he walks past and sits in the big chair behind his desk.

This is how I picture him in memory: white lab coat, stethoscope hanging loosely around his neck, ensconced behind mountains of incomplete medical records, drug samples, and junk mail. He reaches into a small refrigerator behind his desk and takes out a Dr Pepper, which he offers to me. When I decline, he pops the top and takes a long pull from it, his eyes watering from the sudden shot of carbonation.

“I’m in a bad spot, Penn,” he says in a frank voice. “I apologize for being an ass the other night. It’s not easy for a father to admit weakness to his son.”

I nod awkwardly, imagining a future when I am certain to fall short of Annie’s idealized image of me. “Dad, there’s nothing you can tell me that will change my opinion of you. Just tell me what’s going on so we can deal with it.”

He clearly doubts my statement, but he’s made up his mind to talk. “Twenty-five years ago,” he says, “your Aunt Ellen got into some trouble.”

My mind is spinning. When he said “twenty-five years ago,” I thought he was going to start talking about Del Payton. But Payton was killed thirty years ago. The shift to my mother’s younger sister, Ellen, throws me completely.