I look at Mother.Plantation is an outdated term she likes to use to gloss up the farm, while the“orchard” is a barren apple tree. A pear tree with a worm problem.

But Missus Whitworth has stiffened around the mouth.“Twice a week? Stuart, I had no idea you came to town that often.”

Stuart’s fork stops in midair. He casts a sheepish look at his mother.

“Y’all are so young.” Missus Whitworth smiles. “Enjoy yourselves. There’s no need to get serious so quickly.”

The Senator leans his elbows on the table.“From a woman who practically proposed to the other one herself, she was in such a hurry.”

“Dad,” Stuart says through gritted teeth, banging his fork against his plate.

The table is silent, except for Mother’s thorough, methodical chewing to try to turn solid food into paste. I touch the scratch, still pink along my arm.

The maid lays pressed chicken on our plates, tops it with a perky dollop of mayonnaisey dressing, and we all smile, glad for the mood breaker. As we eat, Daddy and the Senator talk about cotton prices, boll weevils. I can still see the anger on Stuart’s face from when the Senator mentioned Patricia. I glance at him every few seconds, but the anger doesn’t seem to be fading. I wonder if that’s what they’d argued about earlier, when I was in the hall.

The Senator leans back in his chair.“Did you see that piece they did inLife magazine? One before Medgar Evers, about what’s-’is-name—Carl . . . Roberts?”

I look up, surprised to find the Senator is aiming this question at me. I blink, confused, hoping it’s because of my job at the newspaper. “It was . . . he was lynched. For saying the governor was . . .” I stop, not because I’ve forgotten the words, but because I remember them.

“Pathetic,” the Senator says, now turning to my father. “With the morals of a streetwalker.”

I exhale, relieved the attention is off me. I look at Stuart to gauge his reaction to this. I’ve never asked him his position on civil rights. But I don’t think he’s even listening to the conversation. The anger around his mouth has turned flat and cold.

My father clears his throat.“I’ll be honest,” he says slowly. “It makes me sick to hear about that kind of brutality.” Daddy sets his fork down silently. He looks Senator Whitworth in the eye. “I’ve got twenty-five Negroes working my fields and if anyone so much as laid a hand on them, or any of their families . . .” Daddy’s gaze is steady. Then he drops his eyes. “I’m ashamed, sometimes, Senator. Ashamed of what goes on in Mississippi.”

Mother’s eyes are big, set on Daddy. I am shocked to hear this opinion. Even more shocked that he’d voice it at this table to a politician. At home, newspapers are folded so the pictures face down, television channels are turned when the subject of race comes up. I’m suddenly so proud of my daddy, for many reasons. For a second, I swear, I see it in Mother’s eyes too, beneath her worry that Father has obliterated my future. I look at Stuart and his face registers concern, but in which way, I do not know.

The Senator has his eyes narrowed on Daddy.

“I’ll tell you something, Carlton,” the Senator says. He jiggles the ice around in his glass. “Bessie, bring me another drink, would you please.” He hands his glass to the maid. She quickly returns with a full one.

“Those were not wise words to say about our governor,” the Senator says.

“I agree one hundred percent,” Daddy says.

“But the question I’ve been asking myself lately is, are they true?”

“Stooley,” Missus Whitworth hisses. But then just as quickly she smiles, straightens. “Now, Stooley,” she says like she’s talking to a child, “our guests here don’t want to get into all your politicking during—”

“Francine, let me speak my mind. God knows I can’t do it from nine to five, so let me speak my mind in my own home.”

Missus Whitworth’s smile does not waver, but the slightest bit of pink rises in her cheeks. She studies the white Floradora roses in the center of the table. Stuart stares at his plate with the same cold anger as before. He hasn’t looked at me since the chicken course. Everyone is quiet and then someone changes the subject to the weather.

WHEN SUPPER IS FINALLY OVER, we’re asked to retire out on the back porch for after-dinner drinks and coffee. Stuart and I linger in the hallway. I touch his arm, but he pulls away.

“I knew he’d get drunk and start in on everything.”

“Stuart, it’s fine,” I say because I think he’s talking about his father’s politics. “We’re all having a good time.”

But Stuart is sweating and feverish-looking.“It’s Patricia this and Patricia that, all night long,” he says. “How many times can he bring her up?”

“Just forget about it, Stuart. Everything’s okay.”

He runs a hand through his hair and looks everywhere but at me. I start to get the feeling that I’m not even here to him. And then I realize what I’ve known all night. He is looking at me but he is thinking about . . .her. She is everywhere. In the anger in Stuart’s eyes, on Senator and Missus Whitworth’s tongues, on the wall where her picture must’ve hung.