”Well, you’ve made some oblique comments about pursuing that job yourself in the past month.“

”I know.“

”Well…if you’re going to run, you’ll have to announce in a matter of days.“

”I know that, too, Caitlin.“

I hear her breathing, slow and steady. ”Are you going to do that?“

This isn’t the time or place to reveal anything, but I can’t deceive her. ”I’m not sure. But right now, I’m leaning in that direction.“

More silence. Then she speaks in a falsely chipper voice. ”If Mia’s keeping Annie after school, let’s try to get some early dinner. We can spend some time with Annie later at your house.“

”That sounds good.“

”Good. Planet Thailand?“

”Ah…no privacy. How about the Castle?“

”Okay. Call me.“

”I will.“

I put the phone back in my pocket, then turn and sit on the brick wall behind me. I’ve come to the proverbial fork in the road. I began my adult life as a private practice lawyer. Then I became a prosecutor. When I could tolerate that life no longer, I started writing about it instead of living it. That career has been good to me. But has the time come to leave it behind and take up yet another profession? Or would I necessarily have to leave writing behind? Would running this city require every waking hour of my days and nights? Of course it would, says my inner censor. You’re not talking about taking on a new job. You’re talking about a cause, a mission, a crusade-trying to save the town that bore you, to lift it out of a paralysis caused by economic stagnation and persistent racism. And no one’s going to thank you for the effort. You’re going to pay a price, and losing Caitlin may be part of it. And the biggest joke of all? You could spend every ounce of time and energy you have and not make a bit of difference-

A slamming car door snaps me back to reality. Down in the Zurhellen Addition, Jenny Townsend and Reverend Herrick are finally leaving. It’s time for me to go, too. But something holds me here. For the first time, Kate Townsend and I are completely alone. I wish she could speak to me. If she could describe her last minutes, a lot of people’s lives would be simplified, and justice might actually be served. But she can’t speak, and in her muteness she will become the center of a political storm that will be a trial only in name.

After a silent prayer for Kate, I jog down the hill to my car, then pull onto Cemetery Road. An overloaded log truck is rumbling toward me. Last week I might have tried to squeeze around it, but after Chief Logan’s tale of drivers who drink beer in the cab all day, I pull onto the grass beside the cemetery wall to let it pass. The ground shudders as the big truck roars by me, but after it does, I pull back onto the road and head toward town.

On my right, the Mississippi River cuts inexorably through the continent, rolling down toward Baton Rouge and New Orleans like Time Incarnate. As I clear the steep slope of Jewish Hill on my left, the Turning Angel comes into sight. The serene face watches my approach, as though waiting only for me. Of course, the angel only seems to be watching me; I know it’s actually facing away from the road and the river. Nevertheless, I drive slowly as I pass the monument, trying absurdly to catch the angel in the act of turning.

I can’t do it. Only when I pass and look back over my shoulder do I see the ageless visage staring after me again. Stepping on the brake, I make a three-point turn and pull alongside the cemetery wall. The Turning Angel is trying to tell me something. Not with words, perhaps, but there’s a message here. What? What is the message of the marble angel? What you see isn’t always the reality. We look at one thing but see another. Why? With a marble statue, because of a change in perspective or a trick of light. But with human beings, the reasons are more complex. People project only what they want others to see, or at least they try to. And even when unintended clues to the being behind the mask are exposed, we often refuse to see them. Our perception of others is always distorted by our own prejudices, hopes, and fears. And sometimes, as Quentin Avery suggested, we look at others and see ourselves.

”Appearance versus reality,“ I say softly. That sounds like the title of an essay I was forced to write in high school English class.

As I stare over the gravestones at the angel’s androgynous features, several faces seem to project themselves onto the white stone, slowly morphing from one into another like the faces in the classic Sinéad O’Connor video. Mia first. The angel most resembles her, with its oval face and Madonna-like serenity. Yet as I stare, Mia somehow becomes Drew-not Drew as I know him now, but as the beautiful boy he was when he scorched across the firmament at St. Stephen’s more than twenty years ago. I blink my eyes and Drew becomes Ellen, and then Ellen, Kate, until I lose my sense of balance though I’m sitting in my own car on terra firma. Throwing the Saab into gear, I spin onto Cemetery Road and race toward town. But one glance in the rearview mirror tells me what I already know: the Turning Angel is watching me go.

Caitlin and I are sitting in a small private dining room in the Castle, the finest restaurant in Natchez. The building is a restored carriage house behind Dunleith, the city’s premier antebellum mansion. One of more than eighty such mansions, Dunleith is a colossal Greek Revival palace that dwarfs even the mythic mansions from Gone With the Wind. Sited on forty pristine acres in the middle of the city, Dunleith functions as a high-end bed-and-breakfast, while the Castle, named for two Gothic outbuildings on the grounds, exists to feed the guests and, incidentally, the people of the town.

Caitlin and I didn’t drive over together; we met here. She came from the newspaper office, while I left Annie with Mia at my house. We still haven’t spoken face-to-face since she left my house last night.

I was surprised to find the main room of the restaurant crowded when we arrived, so I asked the maître’d to seat us in the private dining room. The owner of Dunleith is a fan of my novels, so my request was granted.

”Do you get that kind of treatment in New York?“ Caitlin asks with a smile.

”Not a chance. They’d seat me by the bathroom.“

We order crab cakes as an appetizer, then set aside our menus and simply look at each other for a while. Just as they did last night, her luminous green eyes exert a hypnotic effect on me. Set in her pale face framed by night black hair, they seem almost independently alive.

”Small talk or big issues?“ she asks.

”I think we owe it to ourselves and Annie to go ahead and deal with some things.“

Caitlin nods in agreement. ”Annie called me when she got out of school today. She asked if I’d watch a movie with her tonight.“

”She told me you said yes.“

”I’ve missed her.“

Then why haven’t you called her?”Why don’t we lay some ground rules for this conversation?“

Caitlin looks puzzled.

”Absolute honesty,“ I tell her. ”No sugarcoating anything.“

”We’ve always been good at that.“

”Have we?“

”I think so.“

The waiter appears and pours two glasses of chilled white wine. I wait for him to depart. ”We’ve been together for five years now,“ I reflect. ”It seems unbelievable, but we have.“

”It seems more like two.“

”I know. It’s easy to let time slip past. Too easy. I guess the question I want to ask you first is, do you still want to spend the rest of your life with me?“

She looks incredulous. ”Of course I do. I can’t imagine being with anyone else.“

”If that’s true, it’s hard for me to understand why you’ve been spending so much time away.“

”Is it?“