A few women had cried, remembering the way Henry smiled or how he would join them in singing or thinking that the death ofanyone, good or bad, master… - Edward P. Jones

"(Her husband's departure ...) had picked Mildred up by the hair and dropped her down at the doorstep of insanity.
From "Butterfly on F street

It mattered not how long he had wandered in the wilderness, how long they had kept him in chains, how long he had helped them and kept himself in his own chains; none of that mattered now. He patted the baby’s back, turned around and went back to the Richmond Home for Colored Orphans. No, it did not matter. It mattered only that those kind of chains were gone and that he had crawled out into the clearing and was able to stand up on his hind legs and look around and appreciate the difference between then and now, even on the awful Richmond days when the now came dressed as the then.

God is in his heaven and he don't care most of the time. The trick of life is to know when God does care and do all you need to do behind his back.