I knew what my brother would do before I called him. That’s why I’d put it off for so long. JD is not a moderate kind of man, and he saw enough of women being mistreated when we were kids. He don’t have sympathy for that. My whole life, JD has taken care of me. He is a problem solver, and the whole Ronnie situation had become a problem. I couldn’t take his meanness anymore. So I mustered up my courage, called my brother, and tried hard not to think about what would happen afterwards.

The other morning I picked up a hitchhiker and it turned out to be Walt Whitman. The beard should’ve been a dead giveaway, but I didn’t put it together at first.

Memorial Day weekend, Daddy and me were floating the pond where Pop used to take us. Since he died, the land was sold, and a neighborhood built. They converted the pond to retain runoff. Installed a fountain and treated it with chlorine that killed all the fish. We were sitting in our john boat.

I saw Walt Whitman walk the smoking ground, nursing the injured and kissing the lips of the soon-to-be-departed. I reckoned it was Jesus come, or John Brown. Those fathers of surrection. When he finally got to where I was lying, he knelt beside me and wiped the sweat from my brow.

The grave was already dug when the morning broke like a wound over the yard. McCray sat in an iron rocking chair, and at his feet the dog lay dying. The man wore undershorts and leather work boots, sipped coffee from a thin white cup. Every little while the dog would thrash and McCray would lay his boot on her chest until she was still except for the heaving of her breath.