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When we leave, Magda is settled, with a worn blue-and-brown patchwork quilt covering her Buster sits next to her on the bed and touches his tiny brother with the tip of one finger

The mother lifts up her face, and I notice for the first time that she has a harelip, but not a bad one She still looks like a print of the Madonna in Lawrence’s art book

"We’ll pay you when Zarek gets his first wages," she says to Mrs Kelly in a thick accent

"No," Sophie responds "You need the money more Get Buster some new britches, and take care of that baby Breast only No cow’s ruel I’ll coh the boy’s thick brown hair and pats the mother on her cheek

I help the midith her heavy coat, throwThen we go into the bitter night, back to the trolley stop When I turn, pale laolden path along the cobblestones, and I can hear Magda singing "To oat, snowy and white"

25

Bolt from the Blue

On the way back across theMother’s Day bouquet of white serviceberry blosso up Wild Rose Road It can’t be the vet; he left on the train yesterday Not likely Katherine MacIntosh either, unless Bitsy’s with her and she’s on the run again The sheriff?

I trot into the house, lock my diary, and shove it under a sofa cushion I plunkmy red kimono on its nail behind the kitchen door Maybe it’s Becky Myers, come to check on me after her excessive worries about the Klan, or perhaps a father, looking for the et out of the battered black open hack The two are dressed in their church clothes, dark dresses with bright white lace collars and white hats that fra a cane, and her coht to the point," Mrs Potts starts out once she settles on the sofa

"I love your house," Mrs Miller interjects "It’s so nice and clean Sood It must be your flowers Is Bitsy here?"

"Her rooone into town to spend the day with her ain "My heart’s been skipping around and causing ht to stop running around after babies"

"She had a fall last week, out in the garden, and lay there for two hours until one of the Bowlin boys passed!" That’s Mrs Miller

"I tripped on an old tomato stake! Could happen to anyone The point is, Patience, I need your help You’re young and strong, and I could turn my mothers over to you I’ll still come to the births in the dayti well and the roads aren’t bad The doctor says I have a few more years if I’m careful" She declares this last part so offhandedly: a few more years I’m taken aback, shocked at the sound of it Mildred stares at the floor