“I wouldn’t come back now if I were her. Not with that fiancé of hers running around like he’s lost his favorite toy. The man needs to buck up and realize she didn’t want him. It’s not happening. The wedding ship has long since sailed. But at least there’s free booze for us,” the other said, taking another long sip from her glass.

“True. We’ll stay until it runs out and then I say it’s time to get out of here. Besides, it’s starting to get hot.”

Mira left the women and passed the gardens. The guests around her had become more brazen. Fueled by alcohol and dizzy from the heat, their recklessness began to feel destructive. A group of men were laughing. They were dressed in matching black suits with silver ties. Mira meant to ignore them but she recognized them: the groomsmen. They stumbled over themselves, slurring their words as they whooped at another man who ambled over to a flower bed a few feet away. His pants bunched at his feet, he held his penis, moving it around in small circles as he peed on the flowers. His face was flushed pink from laugher. “I’m just doing my chores, is all. Watering the flowers. Yessir,” he said, grinning. The others slapped their hands against their knees in their own howling fits of laughter. “Make it rain!” they yelled back.

Mira hurried past the men. She wanted to get off the grounds as soon as possible, to leave for a little while and return once things had settled down, if at this point, they even could.

Eventually, Mira got to the gate where Jesse waited. Jesse wore a white cotton shirt and pants and large brown boots caked with dried mud. The image of him brought up the memory of the Woodsman workers, their bodies hunched over as they picked tobacco during their reenactments, but also of the men she saw earlier digging while they sang, keeping up their pace. She also couldn’t forget the men she’d first seen out by the highway while driving here. All those anonymous men. And now Jesse. She stopped walking, feeling sick. Jesse caught her stare and asked if something was wrong.

“I thought you said you had another set of clothes,” she told him, her voice shaky.

“I should have clarified,” Jesse said, shrugging. “It’s fine for where we’re going. Hey, you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Mira lied. In the distance, she could have sworn she heard the hum of singing. Master, he be a hard, hard man. Sell my people away from me. “You hear that?” she asked, listening to the whispered chorus.

Both of them stood still as the chorus grew louder. Jesse gripped her hand, and their fingers interlocked as the rhythm and hum filled her ears.

“You hear it too, don’t you, Jesse?”