Dicey's Song: Chapters 9–12

The arms on his sweater flapped and his gait was awkward, as if his knees might at any time give out.

“You haven’t said,” he prodded her.

“Yeah, but I’ve got charisma,” Mina argued. “And I’m a clown. I’m much easier to take.”

The airport at Baltimore was a huge, sprawling building.

Gram and Dicey threaded their way through throngs of people.

The woman’s face registered no expression.

The linoleum had been laid on in blocks and worn down colorless.

The place smelled of cleansing liquid and the empty hall reverberated with muffled sounds.

It was a big room, where the light was tinged with yellow from the yellow shades halfway down over the windows.

Her head lay back on the pillow, surrounded by an aureole of honey-colored hair.

After that, they were alone in the thick silence of the ward, Gram and Dicey, and Momma.

Somehow holding onto the hand, she had the same impulse Gram had had, to talk. Talk was reaching out to the form on the bed, even though you knew it couldn’t be called back.

Pieces of paper blew around on the sidewalk until they came to the edges of the buildings. There they nestled up forlornly.

People jostled past her, but she couldn’t be bothered to get out of their way.

She thought Maybeth might like a fancy doll, but she couldn’t find one that didn’t have an empty, simpering face.

The planes had broad white wings and shiny red fuselages.

But in comparison, the littlest plane looked too small, meager.

The girl behind the counter gave her only one, harried, glance before she filled out the receipt and put the plane and catapult into a box.

After the warmth in there, maybe because they sold toys, the street seemed even dingier and colder.

The undertaker, shipping the coffin—down to Maryland, isn’t it?

The undertaker, who wore a dark suit and a solemn expression, received them in his office.

She thought you would want to expedite the cremation.

I have already dispatched a vehicle to pick up the deceased.

But when they studied the urns, Dicey couldn’t see any she wanted, not for Momma. Some were tall china ones with dark flowers on them. Some were cold metals, silver and brass. Some were plain white china and looked like vases.

“Did I look all that discombobulated when I left home?” Gram demanded.

It was snowing when they left Boston, in big flat flakes that shrouded the sky.

As if Dicey were a sailboat and the sails were furled up now, the mainsail wrapped up around the boom, and she was sitting at anchor.

Before Dicey could speak, the woman sidled past an emerging man to slip into the bathroom.

Sammy lumbered into the room, staggering under an armload of logs.

“Pepperoni and sausages, he said, and mushrooms and onions,” James told her. He was trying not to smile. “Smothered in melted cheese. Succulent,” he said again, with satisfaction.