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"Rasp Jerry and Noel"

"No offense, Dellarobia, but somebody builds you a cozy little box, and you just move in? That’s basically one of the concepts they use in pest control"

"No offense, Dovey, but you’ve always had a ho a do-over wasn’t an option for me You kind of need parents for that"

Dellarobia took a long, slow drag on her cigarette, feeling the chemical rush arrive little by little in her blood, her hands and feet, the answer to a longing that seeer than her body "And anyway I’d felt that baby et the hiccups whenever I tried to lie down Cub was the happiest he’d ever been in his life We were going to be this little family There’s stuff you can’t see fro her in the eye in the s to buy it a cemetery plot"

At that, Dovey sat down beside her and put her head on her shoulder, close to tears, an uncoht If they both fell apart at the sa," Dellarobia said "He’d be turning eleven today If the child had lived, he’d be that old now We’d be having a fifth-grader birthday party here I can’t find any possible way to make that real in my head"

Preston suddenly appeared in theDellarobia so badly she nearly dropped her cigarette

"Maives you cancer and ht to quit right now, hadn’t I?"

He nodded soberly Dellarobia arette in the ashtray She opened the vanity drawer, pulled out her pack of cigarettes, and flung it into the trash basket It floated like a shipwreck survivor a the wadded tissues and cru its rescue, herforward to the next time she’d be able to sneak off for a secret hookup with herpassion, nicotine Who needed hell when you had a demon like this?

"So," Dovey said quietly, after Preston had disappeared again, "how h that little routine?"

"I hatein the cancer ward," Dovey said, raising one eyebrow "Like you say, it’s a strategy Works for so to Preston, of all people The congenital Eagle Scout He deserves aany better? You should see what I do at work--the uilty-conscience central People with ‘heart attack’ written all over their faces, buying bacon Or these hateful old ladies co turkey, like that’s going to bring the kids back home this year The human person cannot face up to a bad outcome, that’s just the deal We’re all Cleopatra, like that Paypt Queens of de-Nile"

The word had weight for Dellarobia, who had been through school-sponsored grief groups after each parent’s death The stillbirth was an unofficial add-on to the second round, in those dih school she otherwise barely reet it over with, was the counselor’s advice "I’s," she said, "but not in denial, I don’t think"

"Case rests, sugar"

Dellarobia felt disoriented, with all those years inside her that added up to naught Twenty-eight She felt so young, especially with Dovey here anchoring her to the girl she’d been at seventeen, and at seven She and Dovey couldin the core of a person really altered

"I look like a preteen runaway," Dovey pronounced, startling Dellarobia with her similar frame of mind But that wasn’t it Dovey’s focus was on the flat, flyaway hair "Who were the little orphan girls in those books we read?"