Night talk

At night, under the same roof, under the same moon, nothing divides the girls, Evie and Janey Louise. Talking in their beds they discuss their mothers, Agnes and Volusia; their absent fathers, one dead, one on the other side of the country; and their brothers, one fighting polio, the other fighting in the U.S. Army. Their closeness blinds Evie to the divisions of daylight - that she is white and her best friend is black; that it is her family's house they live in; that Janey's mother is the housekeeper for Evie's family. For years the inequities of race so permeate their lives that they…