"Jim, can't you hear me?"

Coming gradually back to the riverbank in Texas, he realized May Sue was standing over him. Her white cotton shorts and red halter top clung to her freshly‑washed body as though she was melted and poured into them.

"Are you so sick you can't even hear me anymore? I did not want you sitting out in this hot sun all day."

"It can not be any worse than staying up there at the house and listening to you and your daughters all day."

"How about your son?" she asked.

"He's been down here with me part of the day."

"Jim, I want him to be with you as much as he can; it is important. He said you tried to teach him about Communism."

"He's got to be taught. I do not think he understood."

"Let me tell you he thinks it is something about free people losing their rights to own private property."

"It is part of it, May Sue, but it is more than that, it is not being able to learn what you want to in school or in church. You can't even worship God the way you want to."

"You ought'n to mind since you haven't attended church since you got back from Korea."

"Maybe it is because some good Christians doing what they done while I was gone, May Sue."

"I guess it is me and Charles Ray you are talking about. You and Dawn, the Korean girl you talk about in your sleep must carried on some between the sheets far as I can tell."

"We did not leave no bastard following another man around calling him, Daddy."

"You kill her like you would like to Norma Jean sometime?"

Her question frightened Jim. "We do not have much time together. Let's don't waste it fighting." He recoiled from the accusation. Something stirred in his subconscious like a knife cutting through nerves accusing him. He knew he killed someone important to him before.

"Seems like it is you who always brings the subject up and then drops it like a hot potato. Maybe it would do you good to cleanse your soul before you die. Like telling me what happened. I am a grown woman who knows all about you and Rosita. I can take it. Try me, Jim. I am so tired of having this Korean woman dangling down between us."

"There are better things for us to talk about. Besides you are not a priest or something to hear confession: are you?" he asked crossly.

"No Jim, I am just your wife who has loved you most of her life as far back as I can remember."