Chapter 20 Summary

The final light of afternoon fades into night as Hightower watches. He remembers watching the light fade as a young man, fresh from the seminary and new to Jefferson. He never even told his wife, back when they were still in love, how the light had seemed audible to him. Hightower was an only child, and his father refused to own slaves. So, during the war, Hightower's mother had eaten only the meager food she was able to grow herself in the garden. Hightower blamed his father for the fact that his mother became an invalid, due, Hightower believed, to malnutrition. At age twenty-one, his father, too, was a minister, preaching at a Presbyterian church far out in the hills. His father, Hightower's grandfather, laughed when he had heard. During the Civil War, his father served, wearing his minister's frock coat in lieu...