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sorry, I don’t really understand.”
    Again, she sighed, and I was afraid this offer, whatever it was, would be snatched away again because I was making her impatient. But she sighed not out of irritation, rather out of a heaviness of the heart.
    â€œGalilee was everything to us,” she said. “And he became nothing. I want you to understand how that came about.”
    â€œI’ll do my best, I swear.”
    â€œI know you will,” she said gently. “But it may take more courage than you have. You’re so human, Maddox. I’ve always found that hard to like.”
    â€œI can’t do much about it.”
    â€œYour father loved you for that very reason, you know . . .” Her voice trailed away. “What a mess it all is,” she said. “What a terrible, tragic mess. To have had so much, and let it go through our fingers . . .”
    â€œI want to understand how that happened,” I replied, “more than anything, I want to understand.”
    â€œYes,” she said, somewhat distractedly. Her thoughts were already elsewhere.
    â€œWhat do I need to do?” I asked her.
    â€œI’ll explain everything to Luman,” Mama replied. “He’ll watch over you. And of course if it’s too much for your human sensibilities—”
    â€œZabrina can take it away.”
    â€œThat’s right. Zabrina can take it away.”
V
i
    I had a different vision of the house thereafter. Everything was expectation. I was looking for a sign, a clue, a glimpse of this mysterious source of knowledge that Cesaria had invited me to share. What form would it take, if it wasn’t books? Was there somewhere in the house a collection of family heirlooms for me to sift through? Or was I being entirely too literal? Had I been invited into a place of spirit rather than substance? If so, would I have the words to express what I felt in that place?
    For the first time in perhaps three months I decided to leave my room and go outside. For this, I need somebody’s help. Jefferson didn’t design the house anticipating the presence of a crippled occupant (and I doubt that Cesaria ever thought she’d entertain such frailty) so there are four steps in the passageway that leads out to the front hail; steps which are too deep for me to negotiate in a wheelchair even with help. Dwight has to carry me down, like a babe in arms, and then I wait, laid prone on the sofa in the hallway, until he brings down the chair and sets me in it.
    Dwight is quite simply the most amiable fellow I have ever known; though he has every reason to hate the God who made him and probably every human being in the state of North Carolina. He was born with some kind of mental defect that made self-expression difficult, and was therefore thought to be an idiot. His childhood and early adolescence were a living hell: denied any real education, he languished, abused by both his parents.
    Then, one day in his fourteenth year, he wandered into the swamp, perhaps to kill himself; he says he doesn’t exactly recall the reason. Nor does he know how long he wandered—though it was many days and nights—until Zabrina found him at the perimeters of L’Enfant. He was in a state of complete exhaustion. She brought him back to the house, and for reasons of her own nursed him to health in her rooms without telling anyone. I’ve never pressed Dwight as to the exact nature of his relationship with Zabrina, but I don’t doubt that when he was younger she used him sexually; nor do I doubt that he was quite happy with the arrangement. She wasn’t then quite the scale she is now, but she was still substantial; for Dwight this was no hardship. He has several times mentioned to me in passing his enthusiasm for plentitude in a woman. Whether that taste predated his time with Zabrina, or was formed by it, I don’t know. I can only report that she kept him a secret for almost