He stopped.
"It's after five on a Friday," she said. "This dog's not going anywhere tonight. Not with you and not with her. Nobody's going to decide anything in this room with him lying on the floor like that and that child crying, I won't have it. The contract's signed, I know that. It's also sitting in my desk drawer and the dog hasn't been released, and until he's been released he's mine, and I'm going to take the weekend." She looked at Dessa. "I want to talk to your mother."
"She works doubles Saturdays. Seven to eleven."
"Then I'll come to her before seven. Where are y'all?"
"The Palmetto Motor Lodge," said Dessa. "On Rivers Avenue. Room fourteen. By the ice machine."
Toomer wrote it down on the back of an envelope. Then she looked at the Prioleaus. "And I'll call you."
"We would appreciate that," Pinckney Prioleau said. He stood up. He put out his hand for his wife's and she gave it to him, and stood, and Toomer saw her sway, very slightly, the way a person sways who has stood up too fast, and saw his hand tighten on her elbow and stay there.
At the door Adelaide Prioleau stopped. She turned around. She was still holding the Polaroid. She looked at it once more and then she bent down, slowly, her husband's hand still on her arm, and gave it back to Dessa Gadsden on the floor.
"Your sister," she said. "When she has one. Does she know, afterward? Does she remember any of it?"