“Benign?” I ask, my arm around his daughter’s bare shoulders. Her compact body is delightfully voluptuous as well as athletic. As I’ve come to know it, I’ve been confronted by the knowledge of how much work she puts into it. In the corner is one of those Nordic Tracks a fitness torture chamber whose very name suggests an uncompromisingly bleak and sunless existence.

Waking up on occasion to my girlfriend trudging nowhere is unnerving.

What if she were to give up exercise and start eating? She claims she weighs herself every day. I believe her, having seen her measure herself in ounces. Only five-two, she doesn’t have any inches to give away to the never-ending battle of the twentieth century.

Light-years more comfortable naked than any woman I’ve ever known, Amy studies her father’s grim likeness and answers my question.

“Like you, not always,” she says, putting her hand on my thigh.

“I can feel his judgment even in my sleep. Actually, he tried hard to be tolerant, but his disapproval always found a way.”

Later, as we lie in the darkness, it becomes clear what our discussion was all about: whether she admits it or not, Amy wants a father figure.

Do I need another daughter? Surely not. Sarah is more than enough for me. Whatever the future holds, these few hours with Angela have made me wonder if I wouldn’t be better off with a woman who shares my past.

For better or worse, despite its past horrors and poverty, I have to acknowledge the Delta is still my emotional home. It is a generational thing: the visit with Angela has awakened feelings that I could never possibly have with Amy, who, growing up in the post-civil-rights era, understandably lives only in the present tense.