The two of them had been sitting in the living room, Johnnie belching softly after one of May’s Mexican dinners. She’d gone out with her recently acquired Pekingese. Johnnie was retelling Annie about the grand old times when his hair was rich and curly and black and his teeth hadn’t gone bad and he had had his pick of the most beautiful boys the world had ever seen…Now, he just drove around in his sinful old car and picked up what he could in the way of sewing jobs and young men. When she said she was sorry, he’d shown her his brown stubs of teeth and said, “My life has been a dumb thing, but don’t you cry for me, Susannah.”

He was not at all like Samuel. He worried wholeheartedly about Annie, and comforted her from his small store of mercy. And unlike Samuel, he was miserably poor. They paid him so little for his work at the studio. “It’s worse than being a nigger,” he said. And then added softly, “There’s a beautiful colored boy who does errands out at the studio. He moves inside a cloud.”

May had come back from walking the dog, actually she had staggered back, her hair in disarray, her dress pulled down on one fat freckled shoulder. The Peke was yapping. Johnnie had risen to his feet, walked toward her in a crouch, an arm flung across his forehead like a tragic hero.

“Don’t you make fun of me, you rotten pansy!” May cried, and burst into sobs. “What is it? What is it!” Annie begged, as May lifted her mascara-streaked face from her hands.

“Two blocks south of here,” she began in a kind of chant, “in the dark…a man bit me”…her voice rose to a scream…“on the breast!”

“Bit on the tit!” Johnnie sang, banging at the piano.

“Out!” howled May.

“Why, you made that up!” Johnnie cried. “You lovesick old cat! Don’t you just wish—”

Annie ran out of the room to her own small cubicle and packed up her bag. It was enough! Every night, May came back with a new tale of assault. She was drunk in the morning, sick until midafternoon, then, attired in a kind of monk’s robe, she cleaned the house, flinging furniture about and complaining bitterly about Annie’s idleness—Why the hell had she ever taken on such a helpless infant? Not even the goddamned Ouija board could be trusted!

She hadn’t spoken to May since that night. Johnnie, bringing her Walter’s letters, said she could forget about her. “She blames you for anything that goes wrong, and believe me, everything does! I told her she should go and kneel at the little white feet of Aimee S. McPherson. Oh, don’t look so scared! She’ll forget all about you soon enough.”