Rivera tiptoed her way across the kitchen to the coffeemaker, boosted herself up on the counter, and sat there looking over what Angie had wrought. She wished, now, that she had picked another place for this project.

“Where’d you go for your office-supply fix?”

“Don’t yell,” Angie said. “Wal-Mart. I was desperate.”

“I guess you were, to go thirty miles for paper and pencils and—oooh, nice paper clips.”

“You’ll be glad when I’m done; you won’t have to go scrounging when you need something.”

Rivera was fiddling with the filter. “I’m not complaining. An office-supply fix is better than getting drunk, any day.” She began to scoop coffee, yawning while she counted under her breath.

Angie continued to work, but mostly she was anticipating Rivera’s next question, which would be aimed at the very heart of the things she least wanted to talk about. She would ask about last night, and Angie’s choices would be limited. She could refuse to talk about it, which was a kind of admission of its own that something big was going on, or she could spill the beans. She never had been able to lie to Rivera successfully.

Rivera turned the machine on, and when it began to hiss she slid off the counter. Her bare feet hit the linoleum with a thump. Then she sat down and reached for a pile of paper and began to look through it. “Hand me a couple file folders,” Rivera said. “And the label maker, too, while you’re at it.”

They worked together for a few hours, stopping to make coffee or grab something out of the refrigerator. Angie was surprised, and then relieved, and then pleased. It was a comfort to sit like this with Rivera. They talked very little, and when they did, it was work or Tony, who was still in bed nursing his concussion.

“Who is this again?” Rivera asked, holding out a dog-eared black-and-white photo.

“Mr. Reston from Reston’s Appliances.”

“And he’s important to us how?”

Angie picked up a pile of paper and looked through it. “I went to see him because of his entry in the memory book. ‘If you are going to go digging up old stories best left buried, I hope you’ll listen to both sides. If that’s not too much to ask.’”

“Sounds promising,” Rivera said, perking up.

Angie said, “His father was the one who kept turning Miss Zula and Miss Maddie away when they first tried to register to vote. He told me the story himself. Worried about how his father will look.”

“He’s willing to go on the record?”

“Oh, yeah,” Angie said.

Rivera disappeared again to check on Tony, and came back with the news that he was awake and cranky.