As Dad passes around the mustard greens and cheese grits and beer biscuits, another memory rises unbidden. One cold hour before dawn, sitting beside Sarah's hospital bed, I fell to my knees and begged God to save her. The words formed in my mind without volition, strung together with strangely baroque formality: / who have not believed since I was a child, who have not crossed a church threshold to worship since I was thirteen, who since the age of reason have admitted nothing greater than man or nature, ask in all humility that you spare the life of this woman. I ask not for myself, but for the child I am not qualified to raise alone. As soon as I realized what I was thinking, I stopped and got to my feet. Who was I talking to? Faith is something you have or you don't, and to pretend you do in the hope of gaining some last-minute dispensation from a being whose existence you have denied all your life goes against everything I am. I have never placed myself above God. I simply cannot find within myself the capacity for belief.

Yet when Sarah finally died, a dark seed took root in my mind. As irrational as it is, a profoundly disturbing idea haunts me: that on the night that prayer blinked to life in my tortured mind, a chance beyond the realm of the temporal was granted me, and I did not take it. That I was tested and found wanting. My rational mind tells me I held true to myself and endured the pain as all pain must be endured-alone. But my heart says otherwise. Since that day I have been troubled by a primitive suspicion that in some cosmic account book, in some dusty ledger of karmic debits and credits, Sarah's life has been charged against my account.

"What's the matter, Daddy?" Annie asks.

"Nothing, punkin."

"You're crying."

"Penn?" my mother says, half rising from her chair.

"I'm all right," I assure her, wiping my eyes. "I'm just glad to be here, that's all."

Ruby reaches out and closes an arthritic hand over mine. "You should have come back months ago. You know where home is."

I nod and busy myself with my knife and fork.

"You think too much to be left alone," Ruby adds. "You always did."

"Amen," Dad agrees. "Now let's eat, before my beeper goes off."

"That beeper ain't gonna ring during this meal," Ruby says with quiet certainty. "Don't worry 'bout that none."

"Did you take out the batteries?" Dad asks, checking the pager.

"I just know," Ruby replies. "I just know."

I believe her.

My mother and I sit facing each other across the kitchen counter, drinking wine and listening for my father's car in the driveway. He left after dinner to take Ruby home to the black section north of town, but putting Annie to bed took up most of the time I expected him to be away.

"Mom, I sensed something on the phone. You've got to tell me what's wrong."

She looks at me over the rim of her glass. "I'm worried about your father."

A sliver of ice works its way into my heart. "Not more blockage in his coronary vessels?"

"No. I think Tom is being blackmailed."

I am dumbfounded. Nothing she could have said would have surprised me more. My father is a man of such integrity that the idea seems utterly ridiculous. Tom Cage is a modern-day Atticus Finch, or as close as a man can get to that Southern ideal in the dog days of the twentieth century.

"What has he done? I mean, that someone could blackmail him over?"

"He hasn't told me."

"Then how do you know that's what it is?"

She disposes of my question with a glance. Peggy Cage knows more about her husband and children than we know ourselves.

"Well, who's blackmailing him?"

"I think it might be Ray Presley. Do you remember him?"

The skin on my forearms tingles. Ray Presley was a patient of my father for years, and a more disturbing character I have never met, not even in the criminal courts of Houston. Born in Sullivan's Hollow, one of the toughest areas of Mississippi, Presley migrated to south Louisiana, where he reputedly worked as hired muscle for New Orleans crime boss Carlos Marcello. He later hired on as a police officer in Natchez and quickly put his old skills to use. Brutal and clever, his specialty was "vigorous interrogation." Off-duty, he haunted the fringes of Natchez's business community, doing favors of dubious legality for wealthy men around town, helping them deal with business or family troubles when conventional measures proved inadequate. When I was in grade school, Presley was busted for corruption and served time in Parchman prison, which to everyone's surprise he survived. Upon his release he focused exclusively on "private security work," and it was generally known that he had murdered at least three men for money, all out-of-town jobs.

"What could Ray Presley have on Dad?"

Mom looks away. "I'm not sure."

"You must have some idea."

"My suspicions have more to do with me than with your father. I think that's why Tom won't just tell Presley to go to hell. I think it involves my family."

My mother's parents both died years ago, and her sister-after two tempestuous marriages-recently married a wealthy surgeon in Florida. "What could Presley possibly know about your family?"

"I'm not sure. Even if I knew, Tom would have to be the one to tell you. If he won't-"

"How can I help if I don't know what's happening?"

"Your father has a lot of pride. You know that."

"How much is pride worth?"

"Over a hundred thousand dollars, apparently."

My stomach rolls like I'm falling through the dark. "Tell me you're kidding."

"I wish I were. Clearly, Tom would rather go broke than let us know what's going on."

"Mom, this is crazy. Why do you think it's Presley?"

"Tom talks in his sleep now. About five months ago he started eating less, losing weight. Then I got a call from Bill Hiatt at the bank. He hemmed and hawed, but he finally told me Tom had been making large withdrawals. Cashing in CDs and absorbing penalties."

"Well, it's going to stop. I don't care what he did, I'll get him out of it. And I'll get Presley thrown under a jail for extortion."

She laughs, her voice riding an undercurrent of hysteria.

"What is it?".

"Ray Presley doesn't care about jail. He's dying of cancer."

The word is like a cockroach crawling over my bare foot.

"Which is almost convenient," Mom goes on, "but not quite. He's taking his sweet time about it. I've seen him on the street, and he doesn't even look sick. Except for the hair. He's bald now. But he still looks like he could ride a bull ragged."

I jump at the sound of the garage door. Mom gives me a little wave, then crosses the kitchen as silently as if she were floating on a magic carpet and disappears down the hall. Moments later, my father walks through the kitchen door, his face drawn and tired.

"I figured you'd be waiting for me."

"Dad, we've got to talk."

Dread seems to seep from the pores in his face. "Let me get a drink. I'll meet you in the library."