And Jolene made a sound and said, “I can’t do it, Roland,” and I looked at my sister on a velvet sofa at two in the morning and she was not lying.

She genuinely could not do it.

I have never once in nineteen years believed otherwise.

Part Three: What My Mother Said

I asked where the father was.

“Gone,” Jolene said.

“He went in February.”

I asked whether anybody had been to see the baby.