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followed orders this time—not for Terry, but for Jimmy. She was scared she’d say the wrong thing and make it worse for her brother. This wouldn’t be the first time. There was a tightrope between them that started to fray every time one took a step toward the other.
    In the silence, she listened to Jimmy chew. He made a wet, mechanical sound. She found herself watching the hinge of his jaw, the way it poked out when he bit down. He was like a construction machine scooping eggs into his mouth, chewing, then scooping in more. There was no expression on his face. His eyes were almost glazed. He stared at a fixed point on the wall opposite his chair.
    She knew what he was seeing. Gray plaster with a brown patina from all the cigarette smoke. This was the room Hank Lawson occupied on the rare occasions he lived with his family. The minute he got home, he carried down the TV from Delia’s bedroom and put it on the buffet table. Then he’d chain-smoke and watch the set until the national anthem started playing. Some nights, Maggie would go downstairs to get some water and find her father staring at the American flag waving across a blank background.
    Maggie doubted Jimmy was thinking about their father right now. Maybe he was remembering that last football game. His life before alinebacker turned his knee into oatmeal. Maggie had been in the stands alongside everybody else. She’d watched Jimmy saunter onto the field with his usual confidence. He raised his fist. The crowd roared. They chanted his name. He was their golden boy, the hometown kid who was making good. His future was already set. He was going to UGA on somebody else’s dime. He was going to get drafted into the pros, and the next time anybody saw him, Jimmy Lawson would be coming out of a nightclub wearing a mink, with a girl on each arm like Broadway Joe.
    Instead, he was sitting at his mother’s dining room table with another man’s blood on his face.
    “Here.” Delia swapped out Jimmy’s plate for a fresh one. She added some bacon. Then pancakes. She doused it all with syrup the way he liked.
    “Mom.” Jimmy waved her away with his fork. “Enough.”
    Delia sat down and lit another cigarette. Maggie tried to eat. The eggs were cold. The grease around the bacon had congealed. Maggie forced it down because she had questions that she knew she would ask if she didn’t stuff food into her mouth.
    She couldn’t work out how the shooting had happened. The minute some guy approached Jimmy and Don, especially a colored guy, they would’ve instantly, automatically, pulled their revolvers. It was basic survival. Don had been in Nam long enough to know you didn’t let some fella get the drop on you. And Jimmy had been on the job since he was eighteen.
    Maggie glanced at her brother across the table. Maybe he’d panicked. Maybe he’d stood there with Don’s blood all over him and been so seized by fear that he couldn’t do anything but drop to the ground and pray that he wasn’t going to die.
    Maggie thought about the clump her mother had picked out of Jimmy’s sideburn. The piece of Don Wesley’s head that was probably in the kitchen garbage on top of the broken eggshells and the plastic package that the bacon came in.
    “Time to go.” Terry folded his newspaper. He told Jimmy, “You get some sleep, son. I’ll call you if anything happens.”
    Jimmy started shaking his head before Terry finished the sentence. “No way. I’m not sleeping until we catch the bastard.”
    “Damn right we’ll get him.” Terry winked at Maggie like it was just him and Jimmy against the world.
    Maybe that’s why she asked her brother, “What really happened?”
    Terry grabbed Maggie’s knee so hard that the pain took her breath away. She cried out, scratching the back of his hand.
    He tightened his grip. “What did I tell you about nagging your brother?”
    Pain knifed up and down her leg. Maggie’s lips trembled. She wasn’t going to beg. She couldn’t