"Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush" by Virginia Hamilton, Chapters 1–4

He had been leaning on a stoop of an apartment building.

Tree understood that the way Brother Rush was dressed expressed his style as well as his melancholy.

She made fleeting notice that Brother's skin was a pale brown with a good sprinkling of reddish freckles.

He had refined features and full lips.

She denied the message that was there in his eyes. It had gone too deeply inside her for her to fathom it at once.

Her insides had performed a wild screeching at her, like a girl swooning in some fifties movie clip she had seen on TV.

"Dab ain't smart. No way," Tree would say when she was by herself in her room or taking off her boots in the foyer.

She would never call the closet room a room. You wouldn't want to show it to somebody as a room. It was more like the end of a room. Like an alcove made too small, with a folding door across it to hide the mistake.

The fish froze solid, flaking scales of ice slivers that made her shiver violently.

Pink and new, it covered her neatly, yet it was a bra, and she was modest.

It was a beige sweater, soggy and musty with the rain she had wiped from her books.

Tree had the vague notion that she had run out and come back again.

She had no recollection of having had the baby. Yet she knew she had.

It made the day shake down to utter stillness.

He stood in the shade a moment, then bounded up the steps.

The woman went in the house and got her numbers. She had them ready for the neighborhood. Had them added up and the names of everybody and how much by each name and each number on a white sheet of paper. She had a good feeling today. She hoped for hits to make her commission.

She'd had a dream last night. All dark and weary dream, something flying.

She'd stifled a scream for fear of waking her good husband.

She thought of her firstborn, wretched son, her cross to bear through life.

The thump-thumping was the boy Dabney's foot opening and closing the closet door. He'd pry it open with his toes.

He was knocked unconscious when he hit the floor, but only for a moment. Vy had fainted, was like a rag doll sprawled across him.

She leaned over to see the shoes with the little electric lights built into the toes. She and M'Vy had gotten the shoes for him in a novelty store.

It was a monotonous one-note, almost a questioning that Tree could recognize even in her sleep, like a stray cat sounding miserable in the rain.

She had learned a considerable amount about taking care of an older brother who was unlike anyone she'd ever known.

"Uh-huh," he said emphatically. "Got to eat."

She stood before the open refrigerator, her hand poised in mid-air, reaching for the meat.

She could be doing something, anything, but always a piece of her mind was attached to the welfare of Dab.

He was being so serious with her, with an earnest look on his face.

Would have taken her wide-toothed Fro pick like a weapon and raked it across that tender piece of skin under the nose between the nostrils.

Carefully she scrutinized him, all that she could see of him from the waist up.