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they remain balanced on the edge of the settee. They look hungrily at the milk and slices of cake, but they are afraid to touch either.
    Esther Davis enters. She moves quickly, as if she has more energy than she can use in a day or a lifetime.
    Even though Willie sees Miz Davis, both here and in the quarters, and Ansel sees her at church every Sunday and sometimes when she comes to the houseto visit with his mother, neither boy can remember ever seeing her eyes on fire like they are now.
    She sits down in an armchair facing the coffee table across from the boys on the settee. Amanda sits down in the companion armchair.
    â€œDon’t be shy,” Esther says, smiling. Her voice is soft and deep. “You won’t hurt that settee, and please, help yourselves to the milk and pound cake.”
    The boys relax, and placing napkins over their laps, they each take a plate and a fork and start eating the cake.
    â€œAnsel? What do you want to be when you grow up?” Esther asks abruptly.
    Ansel quickly swallows the morsel of cake he is chewing and wipes his mouth with the napkin. “Ma’am?”
    â€œWhat do you want to be when you grow up?” Esther repeats.
    Ansel looks at her, bewildered. He does not understand the question. He is going to work in the store with his father, and one day it will be his.
    â€œWillie? What about you? What do you want to be when you grow up?”
    Willie has been thinking about this for a longtime. He has never said it aloud, not even to his mother. But no one has ever asked him. Until now. He looks into Esther Davis’s eyes.
    â€œA doctor,” he says simply.
    â€œA doctor,” his mother repeats, unable to believe what she is hearing. “Where did you get such an idea from?”
    Willie looks at his mother. “Every time somebody in the quarters gets sick, and the white doctor don’t come from town. I heard you say that Grandmamma wouldn’t have died if the white doctor had come as soon as he was sent for.”
    Amanda’s eyes get large, then fill with tears as she remembers what she believes was the unnecessary death of her mother. But she cries also because her son is dreaming, because in the time and place where they live, to dream is an act of courage.
    Ansel did not know Willie wanted to be a doctor, did not know there was such a thing as a colored doctor.
    Willie’s saying he wants to be a doctor causes Ansel to remember the books he likes to read about a lawyer named Perry Mason. Ansel thought it might be fun to be a lawyer and solve murder mysteries.
    â€œAnsel? What about you? Have you thought of what you might like to do when you grow up?”
    He shrugs. “Maybe a lawyer. But Papa wouldn’t let me. I’m supposed to take over the store.”
    â€œThat’s what your father wants. What do you want?”
    Ansel shrugs again. “Never thought about it. My papa took over the store from his papa, and I’m supposed to take it over from my papa, and then my son will take it over from me.”
    â€œIs that the life you want for yourself?”
    He doesn’t like all these questions. No one has ever asked him what he wants. What was the point in wanting to do something if you couldn’t? Seemed to him it was better not to want anything if your parents didn’t want it, too.
    Esther sees the look of bewilderment on the boys’ faces as they turn their attention back to the milk and cake.
    â€œIf the two of you stay in this town, you will die but you won’t know you’re dead,” she says with too much intensity. Her words come out as if she is angry with them when it is the town, the South, and life itself that make her furious.
    But Willie and Ansel giggle.
    â€œHow can you be dead and not know it?” Willie asks. His question explains their giggles.
    â€œJust look around!” Esther continues, even more animated. “Look at the people! There’s not a dreamer among