Chapter Eight

• One is a priest, still wearing a black cassock. That's been put on him for the trail, even though they gave up wearing them years ago
• Gender Treachery
• Without a word she swivels, as if she's voice-activated, as if she's on little oiled wheels
• /Mayday/ used to be a distress signal, a long time ago [...] From m'aidez. Help me.
• We pause, out of respect, while they go by. [...] Beneath her veil the first one scowls at us. One of the others turns aside, spits on the sidewalk. The econowives do not like us.
• They can't help it, she said, God made them that way but He did not make you that way. He made you different. It's up to you to set the boundaries.
• Her speeches were about the sanctity of the home, about how women should stay home. Serena Joy didn't do this herself, she made speeches instead [...] She doesn't make speeches anymore, she has become speechless
• We thought she was funny. Or Luke though she was funny. I only pretended to think so. Really she was a little frightening
• This is a treacherous smell, and I know I must shut it out.
• I hold out this idea to her like an offering, I wish to integrate myself.
• They're talking about me as though I can't hear. To them I'm a household chore, one among many.
• Sometimes these flashes of normality come at me from the side, like ambushes. The ordinary, the usual, a reminder, like a kick.
• Was he invading? Was he in my room?

  I called it /mine/