Summary

Bess lies on an old leather sofa in her mother’s room as she waits for her headache to ease. She hears Nonnie talking to Tracy. She remembers catching Nonnie and Tracy together in Aunt Tyse’s old cabin when Nonnie was only fifteen. Bess watched them and listened as Tracy talked to Nonnie about his desire to work with machinery. Bess ran to her mother determined to tell her about Nonnie’s affair, but ultimately she did not confess what she had seen once she came face-to-face with her. She’d hoped Tracy would not come back after the war, but he did.

Bess thinks about Ed’s attitude toward Maxwell and wonders why he came back. She remembers the two finding a cottonmouth snake while helping in the garden as children. They both screamed but after their mother killed it Ed had...