Sonia doesn’t need to be asked twice, and runs off toward Aristotle’s stall.

“She won’t bite, will she?” I say, nodding to the mare.

“Not unless I tell her to,” Sharon says. “You look surprised, Dr. McClellan.”

“Jean. I guess I am.”

“Del’s an engineer in mailman’s clothing. Got things all set up here so it looks like we’re following along, nice and quiet like. Good man, my Del, even if he is a white boy from town. Come on over here, and I’ll show you something.” She leads me past Cato and Mencken—odd names for horses, I think; not as odd as naming a mare after a classical male philosopher—and opens a door at the back of the barn.

Del’s workshop is both a science lab and the antithesis of any lab I’ve ever seen. Most of the machinery looks as if it were cobbled together from spare game console parts and kitchen equipment. On my right is an old slide projector that has been gutted; on my left, on a clean worktable, are five CPUs from the 1980s, their insides arrayed neatly in rows.

“What does he do in here?” I ask.

“He tinkers.”

“Why?”

Sharon stares at me. “Why do you think? Take a good look at me, Jean. I’m a black woman.”

“I noticed. So?”

“So how long do you think it’s gonna be before Reverend Carl and his holy Pure Blue sheep get it in their heads that it ain’t just women and men who were made differently under God’s eyes, but blacks and whites? You think mixed marriages like mine are part of the plan? If you do, you’re not as smart as I thought.”

I feel myself going red. “I never thought about it.”

“Course you never. Look, I don’t mean to be unkind, but you white gals, all you’re worried about is, well, all you’re worried about is you white gals. Me, I got more to fret over than whether I have a hundred words a day. I got my girls, too. We still send ’em to that school and do what we can on the weekends, until we can figure out a way to get out of here and over the border, but Del and I know a tide’s comin’ in. I guess before the year’s out, we’ll start seein’ more than just separate schools for boys and girls. And just like now, they ain’t gonna be equal.”

There’s no emotion in her voice, no self-pity, only cold, clear observation, as if she were reciting a recipe or reporting the weather. I’m the one who’s sweating.