In “The Last Love,” Anna Morse, the own­er of Morse’s Funer­al Home, grap­ples with the bur­dens of her work and the emo­tion­al weight fol­low­ing her hus­band’s death three years pri­or. She con­tem­plates leav­ing Lin­field, Penn­syl­va­nia, yet remains teth­ered by her reli­able work­er, Nate Tim­blin, who helps her with repairs and brings friend­ship. On Memo­r­i­al Day week­end, Anna is in good spir­its as no one has died yet. How­ev­er, she is con­cerned about a leak in her build­ing that threat­ens the sanc­ti­ty of her mortuary—a thought that unnerves her as it could dis­rupt a view­ing.

As Anna dri­ves to pick up Nate, she sens­es some­thing is off with him, sens­ing a quiet­ness that she tries to break through with casu­al con­ver­sa­tion. Nate brush­es off her con­cerns and men­tions plans to stay overnight at Hem­lock Row, hint­ing at a clan­des­tine vis­it to his nephew, embroiled in trou­bling cir­cum­stances. Anna offers to leave him to work on the leak while she vis­its her cousin in Read­ing, but Nate insists on work­ing alone.

Lat­er, as Nate com­pletes the repairs, he recalls past trau­ma and pre­pares to meet with Miggy, who is sup­posed to help him escape from his past. Mean­while, Miggy is left wait­ing for him, wor­ried that he has been caught and delayed. Intro­duced into this devel­op­ing ten­sion is Bullis, who deliv­ers cof­fee and eggs to Pennhurst and finds him­self unex­pect­ed­ly caught in con­flict with Son of Man, a men­ac­ing fig­ure.

In a star­tling cli­max, Bullis con­fronts Son of Man, lead­ing to a phys­i­cal alter­ca­tion that wraps Nate into the nar­ra­tive. Here, a fig­ure from Nate’s past emerges, inter­twin­ing with his present strug­gles. Released from a metaphor­i­cal and phys­i­cal prison, Nate con­fronts his demons, ulti­mate­ly lead­ing to a trag­ic act of vio­lence as he attempts to save a boy and redeem him­self.

The chap­ter weaves themes of com­mu­ni­ty, sur­vival, and the haunt­ing lega­cy of one’s past, encap­su­lat­ed in the lives of peo­ple striv­ing for jus­tice and redemp­tion in an unfor­giv­ing world.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

A
28
The Last Love
nna Morse, own­er of Morse’s Funer­al Home, had decid­ed to move
out of Lin­field, Pa., many times since the pass­ing of her hus­band
three years ago. Run­ning a funer­al par­lor was too much work, and good
help was impos­si­ble to find. Just man­ag­ing her build­ing, a flam­boy­ant brick
struc­ture at the edge of town that housed her apart­ment upstairs and what
she called the “works”—the mortuary—on the first floor, was a headache.
White work­men refused to work for a col­ored woman. Col­ored work­men
had oth­er ideas, hop­ing to fall in love and find them­selves in a monied
future. That’s why when she need­ed repairs on her build­ing, she always
called on her old work­er, Nate Tim­blin. Nate was a sweet­heart. Depend­able.
Sol­id. No mat­ter what hour, no mat­ter the job, he always came. Know­ing he
was avail­able was one rea­son she had decid­ed to keep her busi­ness in
Lin­field.
Thus, she was hap­py to oblige when Nate called that Sat­ur­day after­noon
of Memo­r­i­al Day week­end ask­ing for a ride out to Lin­field, which was just
north of Hem­lock Row, to vis­it a friend. Hem­lock Row was just a mile from
Pennhurst, and Anna guessed his intent imme­di­ate­ly. He want­ed to vis­it that
nephew of his. She’d read the papers. A twelve-year-old col­ored boy, deaf,
attack­ing a white woman? She had her doubts. But then again … trou­ble
fell on the Negro like rain­drops. She was sor­ry it hap­pened to Nate and
Addie, two of the best folks on the Hill.
It was a quick twen­ty-minute ride to pick him up and she was in a good
mood, for no one, so far, had decid­ed to die that week­end, though four
possibilities—two in Chick­en Hill alone, one in Roy­ers­ford, and anoth­er in
Reading—were per­co­lat­ing. The one in Read­ing con­cerned her most,
because that was a good twen­ty miles away, and the only oth­er col­ored
funer­al home in the coun­ty was in Read­ing, and who­ev­er reached the
howl­ing fam­i­ly first usu­al­ly won. But Anna knew the pas­tor in Read­ing,
and the col­ored doc­tor, plus she had a cousin there who had invit­ed her to
come over for the Memo­r­i­al Day week­end, and she’d decid­ed to take her up
on it. It would be for­tu­itous if the cus­tomer died while she was in Read­ing,
God’s will. But a trou­ble­some leak in her build­ing gave her pause. Water
was seep­ing through the sec­ond-floor bath­room wall, and the night before
had stained the ceil­ing of the view­ing room below. That was unac­cept­able.
The idea of tiny water droplets plop­ping onto the head of the deceased
dur­ing a view­ing gave her the willies. She planned to have Nate take a look.
He seemed unusu­al­ly qui­et as he sat next to her in the gleam­ing Packard
as it rolled down Pottstown’s High Street and cruised south toward Lin­field.
“You been busy?” she asked.
“A lit­tle,” Nate said.
“Can I help in any way?” she said, care­ful to avoid the sub­ject of his
nephew.
“You help­ing me now.”
Anna didn’t press the point. Nate was nev­er one to talk much any­way.
Silences were part of who he was. So she said, “You need a ride back?”
Nate shook his head. “I’m stay­ing overnight on the Row. I’ll be all right
get­ting back tomor­row.”
She want­ed to ask “Where are you stay­ing on the Row?” for she knew
just about every fam­i­ly on the Row. Instead, she saw an open­ing.
“Nate, I got a leak. I think it’s com­ing from the roof down through the
upstairs bath­room and into the view­ing room below it. You got time to take
a look?”
“Course. I’ll look at it right off before I head out.”
“You mind if I leave you? You know where every­thing is. I was think­ing
of run­ning up to Read­ing. My cousin and her husband’s fry­ing up a turkey.”
“Go ’head. I’ll walk over to the Row when I’m done. It’s just up the
road.”
“You ain’t afraid of the dead, are you?”
“No.”
“Well, there’s a cot in the stor­age clos­et over the lit­tle vestibule in the
view­ing room. The clos­et where I keep things. You’re wel­come to sleep
there if you want.”
Nate shook his head. “I got a place to stay.”
“You sure I can’t help, Nate?”
“I’ll look at the leak right off and be on my way.”
She nod­ded, sat­is­fied. “Nate, when you’re ready to make some real
mon­ey, come back and work for me. I’ll pay you good enough to buy a
car.”
Nate nod­ded absent­ly, gaz­ing out the wind­shield at the pass­ing farm­land.
“I don’t need no car,” he said.
—
HE WORKED AT Anna’s house until close to sev­en, first climb­ing to the roof
to clean leaves out of the over­flow­ing gut­ters, then repair­ing the small stain
in the bath­room and view­ing-room ceil­ing. He knew where Anna stored
every­thing and the job was easy. The work calmed him and gave him time
to think. He was in no hur­ry. He was ear­ly, for Miggy said to meet her at
eleven thir­ty after her shift, and Hem­lock Row was only twen­ty min­utes
away by foot. He had nowhere to stay hid­den at the Row for four hours if
he got there ear­ly.
After he was fin­ished, Nate returned the tools, then stepped into the
emp­ty view­ing room. He moved to the vestibule in the back where Anna
stored bod­ies wait­ing for funer­al ser­vices. She always had one or two, as
she liked to joke, “lying about.” He found two open coffins, both men, lying
in repose wait­ing for final view­ings, their coffins lined up like rail­road cars,
one behind the oth­er. The clos­est to him was a mid­dle-aged man with his
hands neat­ly fold­ed on his chest. Atop his hands lay a brand-new neat­ly
fold­ed janitor’s shirt with a spe­cial­ly print­ed label above the pock­et that
read “Herb’s Din­er, in hon­or of our Ted S. Cul­man.” The sec­ond was a
younger man, sev­en­teen or eigh­teen. Nate stared at them both for a
moment, stepped past them into a back clos­et, select­ed a few items, then set
out for the Row.
Miggy would take him to the Egg Man and leave. That was the
arrange­ment. He thought it through again as he made his way down the
dark two-lane high­way toward Hem­lock Row. Miggy want­ed him there at
eleven thir­ty sharp. No soon­er. No lat­er. Then she planned to take him to the
Egg Man named Bullis, who she said would leave for a near­by farm at 4
a.m. to get his eggs, which to Nate meant that the Egg Man had to get out of
bed by three to get to work on time. But where? Was he a Hem­lock Row
man, a Low­god? He hoped not. There were a few Low­gods on the Row
who might be look­ing for him. If they dis­cov­ered him, it would not be
pleas­ant. Miggy assured him no one would see him com­ing or going from
her place. But what if she got cold feet? What if she’d already spread the
word about him? Nate Love is alive. He ain’t in jail. He ain’t down South
either. He’s right over there on Chick­en Hill. He’d thought about it
care­ful­ly. Why should she take a risk and help him?
He trudged for­ward, uncer­tain. He didn’t like it.
—
IT WAS TWO THIRTY when Miggy, still dressed in her hos­pi­tal whites, final­ly
rose from the front win­dow of her home on the Row. She opened the front
door, removed the lantern hang­ing from the hook on the front porch, and
closed it. She peered out the win­dow anoth­er ten min­utes, then gave up. She
went to her back door, left the house qui­et­ly, and moved down the row of
hous­es to the fourth house, where the illu­mi­na­tion of a bare light bulb could
be seen through the win­dow. She tapped on the back door and an old man in
a white beard and somber face answered.
“He ain’t com­ing, Bullis,” she said.
“Just as well,” Bullis said.
“You think he got stuck or way­laid along the way?”
“I hope some­body popped him with a pis­tol,” Bullis said.
“You ain’t gonna get far with them kind of thoughts.”
“What kind’a thoughts am I sup­posed to have?”
“You made a deal.”
“With that pret­ty young friend of yours, the one you call Paper. I ain’t
make no deal with him. I ain’t los­ing my job over him—or that evil young
’un out at Pennhurst.”
“Has any of my futures ever gone wrong on you, Bullis?”
Bullis frowned, then said, “I was hush-mouthed about Nate. I didn’t tell
a soul about him. Didn’t throw out no give­aways to nobody, as God is my
wit­ness. But truth to tell it, I’m glad he ain’t com­ing.”
“I had some words with Son of Man yes­ter­day,” Miggy said. “He did not
take it well.”
“You ought to steer clear of him.”
“Can you wait five more min­utes?” Miggy asked.
“No, I can’t. You said eleven thir­ty. It’s almost three. I got to get mov­ing
to the farm. I’m late now.”
He closed the door and Miggy turned to walk home.
Some­thing, she thought, is wrong.
—
FOR BULLIS, the walk from Hem­lock Row to the farm­house where he picked
up the cart and the eggs usu­al­ly took thir­ty min­utes, but he was late, so he
cut through the farmer’s corn­field, care­ful not to dis­turb the grow­ing stalks,
for his boss would notice and not be pleased. He arrived at 3:10 a.m. Not
bad. It was a forty-five-minute ride to Pennhurst with the horse pulling a
cart full of eggs and a cof­fee urn. The horse, named Titus, was an
Appaloosa that, at four­teen, was near­ly blind, but Titus was a depend­able
soul. He knew the work and the trail, and the two got along.
Bullis found the horse in his stall, tossed him some hay, let him eat, then
led him from the barn to the chick­en coop, a long rec­tan­gu­lar build­ing that
stank of chick­en shit. The door was locked with a hasp to keep out fox­es
and oth­er crit­ters, and the cart was parked in the mid­dle of the build­ing.
Bullis pulled Titus in, fas­tened his trace and har­ness­es, then quick­ly moved
to the eggs, which he’d care­ful­ly crat­ed in stacks the day before. He stacked
the crates into the cart on shelv­ing rigged for that pur­pose, one atop the
oth­er.
He worked quick­ly, but after a few min­utes, he real­ized that the chick­en
coop was odd­ly silent. The roost­ers, who nor­mal­ly began crow­ing at that
hour, were silent. He heard sev­er­al pigeons in the rafters flut­ter­ing, and the
hogs in the near­by pen were gath­er­ing near the far cor­ner clos­er to the
pas­ture, all unusu­al. Were those signs of rain, he thought, or had Miggy
got­ten mad and mojoed him? Would she do that?
He dis­missed those thoughts as he climbed onto the cart, grabbed the
reins, and called out, “Har!”
Titus had turned toward the gate and moved for­ward sev­er­al feet when
Bullis sud­den­ly pulled the reins and said, “Cuss it, Titus … I for­got
some­thing.”
At the tip end of the wag­on was a large sil­ver urn that held hot water for
cof­fee, which he drew from a hot-water heater at the coal fur­nace house
every morn­ing on the way to the low­er wards. The trip to the fur­nace house
was the first stop every morn­ing. He put the cof­fee in place and poured
steam­ing hot water from the giant hot-water heater, and the five min­utes
that it took him to hit the first wards allowed the cof­fee to brew so that it
was just right by the time he reached them. He was care­ful to clean the fil­ter
every day, for the hot water from the heater some­times held ash and grit. He
wasn’t sup­posed to use hot water from the water heater, but who at
Pennhurst knew the dif­fer­ence?
The old man dumped the con­tents of the fil­ter in the near­by hog pen,
then made for the well pump at the far end of the chick­en coop to wash it
clean. As he reached the well pump, Bullis heard Titus offer a sur­prised
whin­ny and snort, but he ignored it. He had to hur­ry. He washed out the
fil­ter, put it back on the urn, trot­ted to the ware­house where the farm own­er
kept the ground cof­fee beans, filled the fil­ter with fresh­ly ground cof­fee,
then climbed up and sent Titus onward.
The horse seemed rest­less and unset­tled. Bullis want­ed to push him to
move faster, but the old steed did not seem to like it.
“C’mon, Titus,” he said. “I’m old, too.” But Titus went at his own pace.
At Pennhurst’s huge wrought-iron gates, Bullis waved at the gate guard
and made a bee­line for the low­er wards, guid­ing the horse along the
wind­ing sin­gle-lane road. When he reached the low­er wards, a good mile
from the main entrance, he came to anoth­er gate and waved at a sec­ond
guard before pass­ing through, then he fol­lowed the road as it wound down a
slope to the giant coal-fired fur­nace house. He stopped out­side, ran a hose
to the spig­ot on one of the giant water heaters inside, filled the cof­fee urn
with steam­ing hot water, then drove Titus back up the path­way. But instead
of turn­ing toward the low­er wards, he drove behind Ward V‑1, where the
path wound toward the rail­road track, and from there, out of sight of both
wards. He drove the horse and cart into a thick­et that con­tained a rarely
used path through the woods, which was over­grown with this­tles and brush.
They didn’t have to go far. Ten feet in, the path arced toward a slight hill
that sloped down toward the rail­road yard below where the train depot was.
Titus, despite being near­ly blind, picked through the thick­ets eas­i­ly,
bump­ing the cart only slight­ly. When they reached the edge of the small
ridge, out of sight of both the train below and the ward behind them, Bullis
leaped off the wag­on, stepped into the thick­ets, and removed two long
planks and placed them by the cart’s wheels. From there, he care­ful­ly drove
the horse over a set of old unused rail­road tracks, placed the wood planks
aside out of sight, drove a few feet far­ther, dis­mount­ed from the cart, and
pushed aside some bush­es and this­tles, reveal­ing a thick, old wood­en door
with rust­ed strap hinges.
The tun­nel.
An old rail­road tun­nel, used in the days when the Penn­syl­va­nia Rail­road
train dropped coal direct­ly from a freight car to the old fur­nace house near
the low­er wards, which was now a vacant weedy field between Wards V‑1
and C‑1. He slid back the door, lit his lantern, and drove the horse in. Titus
picked his way across the buck­ling cement and pot­holes, the floor
occa­sion­al­ly reveal­ing the tracks beneath, which had been cement­ed over.
Bullis again not­ed that Titus was labor­ing, and he became alarmed. Was the
cart full of eggs and cof­fee that heavy?
“All right, Titus. We’ll light­en this load soon enough.”
Titus plowed on, but the horse was clear­ly labor­ing. Bullis eyed him,
con­cerned. The horse was fine yes­ter­day. Could it be, Bullis thought again,
that Miggy mojoed me? He’d nev­er seen Titus so tired—he seemed
exhaust­ed. Should Titus col­lapse and die in that tun­nel, they were both
ruined. He was out of a job and out of a friend.
Did Miggy mojo him? She wouldn’t do that, would she? Not for a
god­damned … He wouldn’t even say the man’s name. It was bad mojo.
Instead, he said aloud, “Miggy didn’t put a spell on you now, did she, Titus?
C’mon … har up!”
Titus respond­ed, pulling hard as he turned a tight cor­ner in the dark
tun­nel, and final­ly they were at the first door. There were only three doors
down there, each lead­ing to the low­er base­ments of Wards V‑1, V‑2, and C-
1. He deliv­ered to the first two wards with­out inci­dent, for the atten­dants
there seemed always eager to get away from their wards and some­times
tried to chat with him. He nev­er did, so they quick­ly hauled their eggs and
cof­fee inside, pour­ing cof­fee from his giant urn into the small­er urns they
had hauled down­stairs, and Bullis moved on to his next stop.
But at the last ward, when he leaped off the cart and moved to the door
to knock, he paused a moment, slight­ly afraid.
Bullis knew Son of Man. He had heard rumors about him, many of them
unset­tling. But Bullis was not a man to speak out. He was an old man who
lived in a world of wrong. He just deliv­ered eggs. Still, when he deliv­ered
to C‑1, he always made it quick. Son of Man nev­er said much, and Bullis
hoped today would be more of the same.
But when he knocked and the base­ment door opened and Son of Man’s
smooth, hand­some face was sil­hou­et­ted in the gleam of the lantern light as
the door swung wide, Bullis saw that today was not going to be nor­mal. Son
of Man was smil­ing. He’d nev­er seen the young man smile before.
“Morn­ing,” Son of Man said.
Bullis grunt­ed a greet­ing, pro­duced a wood­en wedge from his pock­et,
and slid it under the door to keep it open. Then he moved to the cart to grab
a crate.
Son of Man with­drew the prop and closed the door, seal­ing off the light
from the base­ment, leav­ing the tun­nel lit only by the lantern on Bullis’s cart.
His face was tilt­ed odd­ly, his gleam­ing white teeth show­ing.
“That’s a neat trick, old timer, bring­ing your cart to escape some­body.”
“What you talk­ing about?” Bullis demand­ed, try­ing to sound fierce.
“Miggy was on my ward last night, talk­ing harsh and pack­ing a bag for a
boy.”
“I don’t know noth­ing about no boy, nor no bag.”
“No hors­es is allowed in this tun­nel. No peo­ple at all. You know that,
right? You ain’t sup­posed to be here.”
“Don’t tell me how to do my job, son. I been doing it long as you been
liv­ing.”
“I ain’t your son, old man.”
“Don’t be a sass, boy.”
Son of Man smiled. “You ought not talk to Son of Man that way.”
Bullis sucked his teeth, irri­tat­ed. “Some­day when I learn to write, I’m
gonna put some wee lit­tle old let­ters on cards and call myself Al Capone
and pass ’em out to folks. Then I’ll have a fan­cy name like you. Now could
you step out of my way, please?”
Bullis stepped toward the door to push it open, but Son of Man blocked
it. “You could go to jail for break­ing some­body out a state hos­pi­tal,” he
said. “For a lot of years.”
“I ain’t got years,” Bullis said. He sighed. “Son, I’m just an old man
try­ing to make a dol­lar change pock­ets.”
“What about my pock­et?”
“What about it?”
“My pocket’s full of lint.”
“I ain’t here to clean your pock­et.”
“This is my ward.”
“Do this build­ing got your name on it?”
“Keep talk­ing side­ways, old man, and I’ll send you out­ta this tun­nel
hoot­ing and hol­ler­ing.”
Bullis’s tem­per snapped and he felt the blood rush to his face. “You ain’t
send­ing me no place, ya ragged lit­tle skunk! You got no respect, talk­ing to
an elder like you is. Now move your skin­ny ass aside.” He spun around,
grabbed a crate of eggs, and shoved past the young man, kick­ing the door
open wide with his foot and step­ping inside.
As he did, he felt some­thing hard crash into his skull and his knees gave
out. He fell side­ways against the door­jamb, the crate fly­ing for­ward into the
room as he fell. Eggs spat­tered every­where on the base­ment floor.
“My eggs!”
He tried to stand up and felt some­thing strike his head again and found
him­self on the floor. He spun on his back and then saw what hit him. A
packed sock, which this time land­ed on his face. He raised his arms to cov­er
him­self, but the young man was strong, pin­ning Bullis’s arms to the floor
with his legs and sit­ting on his chest, rain­ing blows with the sock and
talk­ing calm­ly as if he were a father spank­ing a child.
“Old!” Whap!
“Black!” Whap!
“Squir­re­ly!” Whap!
“Bas­tard … comin’ in my house!” Whap, whap, whap.
Bullis knew then that Miggy had put the mojo on him, for as the daz­zling
pain washed over him and through his nerve end­ings, he was seized with
the humil­i­at­ing knowl­edge that the young atten­dant was beat­ing him as if
he were a patient, using a sock because it left no mark; and in the blind­ing
flash­es of white pain, he saw over the young man’s shoul­der a pair of feet
sud­den­ly burst out of the built-in cab­i­net of the cart, still parked in the
tun­nel and vis­i­ble through the open door­way. The cab­i­net, which sat
beneath the shelves that held the eggs, was about two feet high and cov­ered
the length of the five-foot cart. It was handy but he rarely used it. It was big
enough to hold scythes and shov­els and big farm­ing tools. Big enough for a
man to squeeze in. Big enough, even, for a ghost.
The ghost that wrig­gled out of it was not a nor­mal-look­ing ghost. It was
a set­tled-aged black man with a face set in calm silence and eyes that bore a
hur­ri­cane beneath them. It was a face that Bullis had not seen in thir­ty
years, but even so, after all those years, the face, aged now but still carved
in grim pur­pose, was instant­ly rec­og­niz­able.
“I left you behind!” Bullis cried.
The ghost didn’t answer. Instead, he moved like a swift gust of wind,
step­ping into the room with deft speed and grab­bing Son of Man’s wrist as
it was raised high for anoth­er blow.
“I wish you had,” Nate said.
Son of Man looked over his shoul­der and found him­self look­ing into
Nate’s eyes. What he saw made him freeze, and he remained there, like a
stat­ue, his right wrist held in the grip of a hand that felt like iron, the oth­er
hand out of his line of sight. He could not see what was in Nate’s right
hand, but he under­stood it. Still, he sat where he was, atop Bullis, his right
hand hold­ing the sock high like a torch, an odd Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty, the torch
held with the help of a Negro brother—Give me your tired, your poor …
yearn­ing to be free—and he felt all of those things, for the eyes gaz­ing at
him were not filled with hate or anger but rather with sym­pa­thy and hurt.
Son of Man looked into Nate’s eyes and saw beneath the swirling pools of
iri­des­cent calm both Nate’s past and his own future and the future of the
com­mu­ni­ty that they both had left behind and even the rea­sons why. The
sight stunned him and he felt for a moment as if he were blind­ed by a great
light.
Nate, for his part, had endured the pun­ish­ing cart ride with grit­ted teeth.
He’d want­ed the elders from his past to speak to him as he rode, for he was
ter­ri­fied. Not of being dis­cov­ered, but of being in a posi­tion where some­one
would unleash the evil poi­son in him. He’d spent his entire adult life
run­ning, ever since he was thirteen—just past Dodo’s age—for he was
thir­teen when he, too, expe­ri­enced his own acci­dent, his own explo­sion. Not
from a stove, but from a father who had dragged his fam­i­ly from the
per­ilous Low Coun­try of South Car­oli­na to the promised land of
Penn­syl­va­nia only to dis­cov­er that despite liv­ing on Hem­lock Row among
the peace­ful Low­gods, jus­tice and free­dom had as lit­tle cur­ren­cy in the new
land as it had in the old. The white man despised him in Penn­syl­va­nia as
much as he did in the Low Coun­try. The dif­fer­ence was that the white man
in the South spoke his hatred in clear, clean, con­cise terms, where­as the
white man in the new coun­try hid his hatred behind sto­ries of wis­dom and
brava­do, with false smiles of sin­cer­i­ty and sto­ries of Jesus Christ and oth­er
non­sense that he tossed about like con­fet­ti in the Pottstown parade. Liv­ing
with­out means, sur­viv­ing with­out hope, depen­dent on God to even mat­ters.
Son of Man indeed. Son of Man was bet­ter than Nate’s own father, who had
been destroyed by the move north, who in turn took a pipe to his moth­er,
and who in turn was deliv­ered to grace by his own son after he ordered the
boy to bring along a cross­cut saw and walk with him into the woods to cut
down a tree. The child took mat­ters into his own hands then and evened out
mat­ters. And it was all for naught, for there the reck­less life of an
aban­doned child who lost to death both par­ents became the last lega­cy of
the Loves, once one of the finest fam­i­lies in the Low Coun­try, for Nate was
the last Love on Hem­lock Row who had come north to live among the
Low­gods, who some­how for­got him and plunged him into a child­hood of
beg­ging and steal­ing. And when the lat­er years of earn­ing a liv­ing as a
grown man by lay­ing suf­fer­ing on any human for a price was stopped by a
trip to the pen­i­ten­tiary that was vis­it­ed upon him for the killing of a
worth­less rapist and thief who would have oth­er­wise been laid low by some
right­eous man, it was as if that killing became Nate’s only redemp­tion, if
there was such a thing, as he came to hope that per­haps God might for­give
him and find a pur­pose for him. When he emerged from prison and met
Addie, who dipped her hand into the pool of injury and hurt that was his
heart and drained it of every evil and refilled it with love and pur­pose, he
became sure of it. She cleansed him. And he’d lose it all now. He didn’t
want to lose it, but he knew it was gone.
“It ain’t your fault,” Nate said to Son of Man.
And with that, he plunged the kitchen knife he held behind him in his
right hand deep into Son of Man’s heart.
As the man fell off him, Bullis heard in the dis­tance the whis­tle of the
morn­ing train bear­ing coal and sup­plies. And the ghost before him, bloody
knife still in hand, spoke calm­ly.