"Hang around?" Paul D didn't even look at the mess he had made.
"Denver! What's got into you?" Sethe looked at her daughter, feeling more embarrassed thanangry.
Paul D scratched the hair on his chin. "Maybe I should make tracks.""No!" Sethe was surprised by how loud she said it. "He know what he needs," said Denver.
"Well, you don't," Sethe told her, "and you must not know what you need either. I don't want tohear another word out of you.""I just asked if — ""Hush! You make tracks. Go somewhere and sit down."Denver picked up her plate and left the table but not before adding a chicken back and more breadto the heap she was carrying away.
Paul D leaned over to wipe the spilled coffee with his blue handkerchief.
"I'll get that." Sethe jumped up and went to the stove. Behind itvarious cloths hung, each in some stage of drying. In silence she wiped the floor and retrieved thecup. Then she poured him another cupful, and set it carefully before him. Paul D touched its rimbut didn't say anything — as though even "thank you" was an obligation he could not meet and thecoffee itself a gift he could not take.
Sethe resumed her chair and the silence continued. Finally she realized that if it was going to bebroken she would have to do it.
"I didn't train her like that."Paul D stroked the rim of the cup.
"And I'm as surprised by her manners as you are hurt by em."Paul D looked at Sethe. "Is there history to her question?""History? What you mean?""I mean, did she have to ask that, or want to ask it, of anybody else before me?"