He had taken a share and built a life on it.

“Lonnie was part of it,” I said.

It wasn’t a question.

Mrs.

Wooten’s silence was the answer.

I asked her how Mama had found out.

Mrs.

Wooten told me what she knew: that years after the fact, Delroy had gotten careless, and Mama had come across paperwork he’d left in a drawer — a deed, a name she recognized, a number that matched the settlement everyone had told her was spent.