Gram only laughed, a croaking sound that sent spit flying, some of it landing on me. I couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

“What’re you so shy for, Hailey?” Gram wheezed. “Your mama was sure hot for it. Wa’n’t right in the head and couldn’t talk sense, but that didn’t keep her from sashaying around like a cat in heat when she got grown.”

That stopped me cold. Gram never talked about my mother. All I knew about her was that she had died in childbirth and that she wasn’t “right in the head.” I thought maybe that last part was why Gram wouldn’t talk about her, some sort of grief that had got all twisted up into ugliness and silence-Gram wouldn’t even tell me her name, and there were no pictures of her in the house.

“What-what-” I stammered, and Gram’s lips curved up in smug satisfaction. She had me. I hated her for it, but she had me.

“Oh, so now you got time to talk to me,” Gram said. “Yes indeed. You don’t need to know anything about your mom other’n she was ripe as an August peach and lookin’ to get picked. Got knocked up with you soon’s the fellas come around sniffin’ at her, that one did.”

“Who-” I started, and then I licked my dry lips, hating myself for the question I was about to ask. I’d asked often enough before to know that she would never tell. “Who was my father?”

Gram’s laughter turned into a coughing fit, but the tears she wiped from her rheumy eyes were full of mean amusement. “That-” she began, then gasped her way through another round of coughs. “That’s quite the question, ain’t it? Could be anyone.”

I had learned a few things about Gram, living with her for sixteen years. I didn’t miss the narrowing of her eyes, the way she drew her lips in.