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Korea. Once he drove to town for throat medicine for Ida when her breathing problems got worse. His having easy access to the Ford suited everyone because Prince washed away the eternal road dust that floured it, changed plugs and oil, and never gave lifts to the boys who begged to join him in the car. It was natural for Luther to agree to let the coupledrive it to Atlanta, since they promised to return it in a few weeks.
    Never happened.
    She was all alone now, sitting in a zinc tub on a Sunday defying the heat of Georgia’s version of spring with cool water while Prince was cruising around with his thin-soled shoes pressing the gas pedal in California or New York, for all she knew. When Prince left her to her own devices, Cee rented a cheaper room on a quiet street, a room with kitchen privileges and use of a washtub. Thelma, who lived in a big apartment upstairs, became a friend and helped her get a job dishwashing at Bobby’s Rib House, fusing the friendship with blunt counsel.
    “No fool like a country fool. Why don’t you go back to your folks?”
    “Without the car?” Lord, thought Cee. Lenore had already threatened to have her arrested. When Ida died, Cee traveled by car to the funeral. Bobby had let his fry cook drive her. As pitiful as the funeral was—homemade pine coffin, no flowers except the two branches of honeysuckle she had snatched—nothing was more hurtful than Lenore’s name-calling accusations. Thief, fool, hussy; she ought to call the sheriff. When Cee got back to the city, she swore never to go back there. A promise kept, even when Pap died of a stroke a month later.
    Ycidra agreed with Thelma about her foolishness, but more than anything she wanted desperately to talk to herbrother. Her letters to him were about weather and Lotus gossip. Devious. But she knew that if she could see him, tell him, he would not laugh at her, quarrel, or condemn. He would, as always, protect her from a bad situation. Like the time he, Mike, Stuff, and some other boys were playing softball in a field. Cee sat nearby, leaning on a butternut tree. The boys’ game bored her. She glanced at the players intermittently, focused intently on the cherry-red polish she was picking from her nails, hoping to remove it all before Lenore could berate her for “flaunting” her little hussy self. She looked up and saw Frank leaving the plate with his bat, only because others were yelling. “Where you going, man?” “Hey, hey. You out?” He walked slowly away from the field and disappeared into the surrounding trees. Circling, she later learned. Suddenly he was behind the tree she was leaning against, swinging his bat twice into the legs of a man she had not even noticed standing behind her. Mike and the others ran to see what she had not. Then they all ran, Frank dragging her by the arm—not even looking back. She had questions: “What happened? Who was that?” The boys didn’t answer. They simply muttered curses. Hours later, Frank explained. The man wasn’t from Lotus, he told her, and had been hiding behind the tree, flashing her. When she pressed her brother to define “flashing,” and he did so, Cee began to tremble. Frank put one hand on top of her head, the other at her nape. His fingers, like balm,stopped the trembling and the chill that accompanied it. She followed Frank’s advice always: recognized poisonous berries, shouted when in snake territory, learned the medicinal uses of spiderwebs. His instructions were specific, his cautions clear.
    But he never warned her about rats.
    Four barnyard swallows gathered on the lawn outside. Politely equidistant from one another, they peck-searched through blades of drying grass. Then, as if summoned, all four flew up to a pecan tree. Towel wrapped, Cee went to the window and raised it to just below the place where the screen was torn. The quiet seemed to slither, then boom, its weight more theatrical than noise. It was like the quiet of the Lotus house afternoon and