I stagger onto the pavement and give Mother a sideways glance. Beautiful Mother, who ran from this place and came back to save me from humiliation. Clever Mother, who found a gentle man to love her, even if his love is part-time and given to her in secret. Her hand trembles in mine, and I stop to catch my breath. A few seconds at most, but it’s enough to regain control of my emotions and find the high ground from which to view Bosman in the right perspective: Small, mean, left behind. And a liar. To hate my mother’s singing is to hate life and all the joyful moments in it.

“This country,” Mother says in a shaky voice. “Oh, this country.”

Bosman has resurrected the scared girl dressed in secondhand clothing and eaten up by the shame of being poor and unprotected. I need to swallow my rage and get her back to our thick carpet on the living room floor and our moonlit walks along the length of Live Long Street, and the sound of Father’s voice on the end of the line.

“Adele,” Lottie says. “We should leave.”

Bosman’s red truck is parked by the curb, with his daughter huddled in the back. She’s dressed in a thin cotton shift with bare feet and a black eye the size of a bird’s egg. I take one step and then another on the road to Keziah. We draw level with the truck and the girl throws her arms over the side, fingers flexed.

“Dee-Dee,” she says. “Dee-Dee is gone.”

“You mean Darnell?” Lottie asks.

The girl nods.

“Yes,” Lottie says in a quiet voice. “Dee-Dee is gone,”

“For me.” The girl stands and reaches for the sky, her hands grabbing at the air. “Butterflies for me.”

Lottie and I exchange blank stares. The girl has lost us. She reads our clueless expressions and sighs as if we are the ones who are simpleminded and need help understanding.

“Purple. Butterflies. For me.” She dances from one end of the tray to the other with a strange grace as she chases and grabs at phantoms. Then with a final lunge, she jerks and falls down onto the tray of the dirty truck. She lies with her arms and legs sprawled, a wisp of brown hair caught in the corner of her mouth.

“I ran,” she says with a knot in her voice. “I ran away.”

Lottie understands, and then I do too:

A cloud of purple butterflies hangs suspended in the air, their shimmering wings reflecting the sunlight. Darnell grabs for one butterfly and then another, always a second too late. The perfect present just out of reach. The purple wings are so close. The lip of the ledge is closer. Then the air takes him and the ground catches him, and the world goes dark.