FROM THE DAY after my hanging, someone was always awake and on guard at Abraham Cross’s house. During the day and the evening, Abraham and Moody took turns keeping watch from the front-porch rocker. Since I was the cause of all this, I took the dead man’s shift, from midnight till dawn.
Some nights I heard Abraham stirring, and then he would come out to sit with me for an hour or two.
One night, along about four a.m., I thought I heard his soft tread on the floorboards.
I looked up. It was Moody standing there.
“Mind a little company?” she said.
“I don’t mind,” I said.
She sat down on the bench beside the rocker. A foot or two away from me—a safe distance.
We sat in our usual silence for a while. Finally I broke it. “I’ve been busting to ask you a question, Moody.”
“Wouldn’t want you to bust,” she said. “What is it?”
“Is that the only dress you own?”
She burst out laughing, one of the few times I’d made her laugh.
It was the same white jumper she’d worn the day I met her and every day since. Somehow it stayed spotless, although she never seemed to take it off.
“Well, if you really want to know, I got three of these dresses,” she said. “All three just alike. Of all the questions you could have asked me, that’s the one you picked?” she said. “You are one peculiar man, Mr. Corbett.”
“I sure wish you would call me Ben. Even your grandfather calls me Ben now.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t do everything he does,” she said. “I’ll just keep on calling you Mr. Corbett.”
At first I thought it was moonlight casting that delicate rim of light around her face, lighting up her dark eyes. Then I realized that it was dawn breaking, the first streak of gray in the sky.
“I’ll be moving back to Maybelle’s tomorrow,” I said. “It’s time.”
Moody didn’t reply.
“It’ll be better for Abraham once I’m out of here,” I said. “And for you.”
No answer.
I said, “The only reason those bastards come around is because I’m here.”
Nothing. She stared out at the street.
“Thanks to y’all, I’m much better now. I’m feeling fine. I’ve got some decisions to make.”
Her silence and stubbornness just went on and on, and I gave up trying to pierce it. I sat back and watched the gray light filling in all the blank dark spaces.
I think we sat another ten whole minutes without a word. The sun came up and cast its first shadows of the day.
At last Moody said, “You know I ain’t never gonna sleep with you.”
I considered that for a moment.
“I know,” I said. “Is it because I’m white?”
“No,” she said. “Because I’m black.”