AFTER SHE FOUND HER WAY OUT OF THE CHURCH, AGNES stood on the street with hundreds of others. These were her neighbors, some of them. Many of them were strangers, but familiar in their Sunday-best dresses and heels, their suits and ties. Here were ambulances, police. A few white faces looking at what white had done.
Agnes saw her husband working in the debris. TJ was pointing out a spot to the white men. TJ was telling them what to do, working with them. He had forgotten his own black skin, their paleness.
When the woman next to her began to sob, Agnes reached out and drew the strange woman to her bosom.
A stretcher was carried into the rubble.
Agnes saw charred flesh. Unmoving flesh. Someone small. Poor naked body. Someone young.
Then Agnes saw a head. All alone. A child’s head blasted from her body. And Agnes fainted.
She felt her knees hit the pavement, and she was gone.