"Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush" by Virginia Hamilton, Chapters 5–8

She controlled her indignation. I know how long she wait for a bus and transfer. I know she got to walk from there to here. But I get so mad at her, I can't help it!

Her serene expression never changed.

She wore her hair straightened in an old-fashioned pageboy with bangs. It was shoulder length and jet black.

He was dressed in his silky, dark finery, one hand cupped to his ear.

Cenithia Pricherd whinnied like a horse.

He was visible for three or four seconds more. Then he faded in a waning of mystical light.

But she eyed Tree every moment she could whenever Tree was in her vicinity.

She gave Miss Pricherd the apple in a lunch sack, paid her and let her out of the house. Telling her good-bye and being slightly standoffish.

You saw what he did, trying to provoke me.

He touched the boy's legs with the wet handkerchief where welts had risen.

He let his head loll back against Brother.

You ever see a child like this one? the woman said admiringly. Behind stickin up all sassy!

All the older, smaller houses and bushes and vines of flowers ranging in color from white to deep purple.

Sweet, now don't you pester him, Binnie’s shrill, nervous voice commanded.

He lurched for the dog, caught Ashland, Ken., by his collar, and pulled him away from the child before he could bite her.

Brother added, how you doin, Binnie? spoken kind, with respect for the profound mystery of illness.

Binnie's return greeting curled out of her mouth in a gurgling of nerves. She was sweet and kind, Brother knew, but as high-strung as a lead guitar.

How long could they go on, watching her teeter down roads, a pathetic, crippled soul with her crippled dog dragging behind her?

His face was ashen. "Don't take me no funerals no more."

She grated cheese and put a cup of it with chopped onion in the sauce when it was ready, while the noodles boiled.

Standing at the sink, fear commenced crawling up her neck. There had been no warning.

So she made him some grits of yellow mush with hot milk.

She helped him change his pajamas that smelled sour from the vomit. And worried how she would get him to bathe in the next few days if he stayed so weak and sick.
How to handle him if I cain't touch him, she thought. Only now did she understand her predicament.

She fought the robe and couldn't find the armholes in the dark. Struggling, she was determined to look neat by the time she left the room.

What was striking was not so much that she was very tall and alone. She was tall and wide, alone. Big and wide and separate from all other of Tree's loves.

M'Vy would perspire from the exertion of going inside and out and climbing on and off buses.

Tree always did leave everything just as neat as a pin after each meal, in case Vy came home. M'Vy had to make sure no ragtag lack of discipline had crept into her house.

Tree suddenly felt angry at M'Vy. It smoldered, then passed to the back of her mind as more pressing considerations came to the fore.

Vy looked at her, appraising her.

All resentment evaporated at the mention of her brother. Maybe some could feel evil to a brother they had to care for more than themselves, the way she did for Dab. But she never could.

"So you got a friend," Tree said. "He one of a few?" Spoken without malice.

"You got yourself a car! Whyn't you tell somebody! How long you have it?"
"Nothin to it," Vy said casually.

Hot water spilled, and Vy let go of it. It hit the floor in a burst of exploding glass and searing water.

She seemed unaware of hot water over everything; yet her expression registered the pain.

"Maybe you did see a ghost." Her voice was shaky, as if she might cry. "I know peoples who has, regularly. They talk to ghosts and confides in em. Maybe so." She sounded fearful, yet resigned.