“They were certainly a pair. Cincinnati in a dead man’s suit, Mother in a dead man’s wallet.”

“Be in control of your piece, Jo. The minute it takes control of you, you’re dead,” Willie would tell me.”

“I didn’t agree with Cokie. It wasn’t just rich folks. Mother was soul broke, too.”

“Good men are often more practical than pretty " said Mother. "Andrius just happens to be both.”

“I wasn't certain of anything anymore, except that New Orleans was a faithless friend and I wanted to leave her.”

“Willie appeared completely calm about the news of Mother. She always said she could make tea in a tornado.”

“The fact that Cincinnati thought I resembled him in any way sickened me. It made me want to run and hide. When I was a child in Detroit and terrors chased me, I would run to my hiding spot, a crawl space under the front porch of the boardinghouse we lived in. I’d wedge my small body into the cool brown earth and lie there, escaping the ugliness that was inevitably going on above me. I’d plug my ears with my fingers and hum to block out the remnants of Mother’s toxic tongue or sharp backhand. It became a habit, humming, and a decade later, I was still doing it. Life had turned cold again, the safety of the cocoon under the porch was gone, and lying in the dirt had become a metaphor for my life.”