Often when she was cleaning him, bathing his soiled loins and thighs with warm water, the stem of life between his legs would raise itself, growing as if a fractured skull meant nothing to it. Poor Maggie got her heart broke, but she gave you a fine son before she quit. He ain't worth it, Gus. The rainstorm soon passed, but she lay awake for the rest of the night, listening to water drip off the wagon.
I think I ought to go, July said. Then he loped away without saying goodbye. It stirred in her distant memories of the days she had spent in her grandmother's house in Mobile when she was four. But he couldn't bring any of it back, and Jake was standing not twenty yards away, weaving from drink, his hands tied, sad-looking.
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