"Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush" by Virginia Hamilton, Chapters 14–17

Tree was happy. Dab seemed more content than ever before.

They were heading for a gigantic masonry tower that supported a whole span of cables.

She could see plush upholstery.

It didn't seem right to be silly without Dab.
On a sudden impulse, she hurried to Dab's room.

She walked to the bathroom, depositing the dirty clothes in the hamper, watching her feet.

Staring at the table, she saw scenes of the past in her mind. She caught and held the one of the car crash, when she had escaped through the trunk. When Ken, her father, had lived and Brother had died. Thoughts snagged on the way Rush fell from the car.

She had caved in on herself, as though all her substance were gone.

He was really tiny. Stunted tiny and skinny legs.

"Me and Silversmith start our own catering service," Vy droned on.

I pay two hundred a month subsidized rent on this place and a hundred fifty on the business storefront.

Her tears were subsiding. She was moaning a little, but the tears had run out.

"You mean you gone do it all?" Tree asked, incredulous.

Tree thought of funeral homes as places you went by on your way somewhere else. She never thought she would ever have to go inside one. She had passed them on the bus sometimes, riding with Dab and M'Vy, peering out the window at the manicured lawns.

She stood at the foot of wide cement steps that were covered in immaculate green outdoor carpet.

The steps led to a sweeping colonnade with tall white columns.

The home looked richer and more stately than any church Tree could have imagined.

There was a cloying scent of flowers everywhere.

"M'Vy!" Tree whispered, feeling the sanctity of the moment. "It's all just beautiful!"

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

They saw the silver hearse pull away. It held the casket and the flowers.

Her shoulders were hunched high, as if to ward off blows.

"How you feelin?'' he asked.
She regarded him a long moment.

They lapsed into silence.

When they were all there, the minister intoned the Twenty-third Psalm.

"Can't I even say what I want?" Tree asked plaintively.

M'Vy stared down her nose at Don, mildly critical.

She and Don were like conspirators against their parents.

He smiled at her kind of wistfully.

Tree sauntered down the hall, then paused and turned around.

She found M'Vy finishing up one of her and Dab's favorite dishes—scalloped potatoes.