Angie closed her eyes and tried to put it all together. She saw Miss Anabel’s crowded parlor, the pictures on the wall. There had been friends and family and students, but she couldn’t recall Abe Bragg among them, and she thought she would have noticed. She said as much to John.

“Do you have any photos of me hanging on your walls at home?” John said, and Angie had to give him that point, though there was something else, something so small and quiet that she had to close her eyes to try to make sense of it. She saw Miss Zula in Anabel’s parlor and the tenderness in her expression when she touched the older woman’s hand, dark skin against the almost translucent white. The fragile skin of a true redhead, something she had seen in another photograph, not so long ago.

And it came to her: Abe Bragg in civilian clothes and the young woman standing in front of him, the way the camera had caught the movement of her hand as she lifted it to touch his fingers where they rested on her shoulder. White on black. Anabel Spate, Abe Bragg.

“You don’t believe me,” John said.

“Oh, I believe you,” Angie said. “I believe you about Anabel and Abe.”

He threw up his hands. “What does that mean? Miss Anabel isn’t a lesbian, but Miss Zula—” He broke off and his expression stilled.

He said, “You think Miss Zula was in love with her brother’s wife. The brother who abandoned his wife when she needed him most. You think Miss Zula is—”

“Harvey Carson,” Angie finished for him. “Miss Zula buttoned herself.”

“Wait,” John said. “You can’t draw conclusions on such—” He stopped. “Shit.” He ran a hand through his hair. “That’s a trick she teaches in every introduction to writing class—switching genders in a story you want to tell to get some distance from it.”

Angie felt a huge wave of relief, and of appreciation, too, that he had taken this jump, though she could see what it cost him.

“If it is true, is that so horrible?” she asked, more gently. “Maybe she decided to go ahead with the documentary because she’s ready to … to …” She couldn’t make herself use the cliché, and so she stopped.

He said, “This is what you wanted to talk to me about, that night after the train.”

She nodded. “I saw a connection, and Tony saw it too. I wanted to ask you about it, what you thought.”