And then, slowly, degree by degree, I felt her rigid shoulders begin to come down.

I washed her back the way you would wash a newborn, with a tenderness that had nothing of duty in it and everything of care.

And when I was finished, and I had dried her skin and helped her into a clean blouse, Edith Ledbetter said, in a voice I had to lean close to hear, “Nobody has touched my back in forty years.” I thought I had misheard her.

“Not even your husband?” I asked.