Often Marcia, home from day school, watched. Propped up in the window
frame with her pet cat, a Persian, with eyes like swimming pools with
painted green bottoms, seated in a perfect circle in her quiet lap,
for all the world in the attitude of a sardel except for the toothpick
through.
Sometimes it almost seemed as if Marcia did the purring. She could sit
like that, motionless, her very stare seeming to sleep. To Hattie that
stare was beautiful, and in a way it was. As if two blue little suns
were having their high noon.
Sometimes Marcia offered to help, because toward the end, Hattie's back
could ache at this process, terribly, the pain knotting itself into her
face when the rotary movement of her stirring arm began to yank at her
nerves.
"Momie, I'll stir for a while."
Marcia's voice was day-schooled. As clipped, as boxed, and as precise
as a hedge. Neat, too, as neat as the way her clear lips met, and her
teeth, which had a little mannerism of coming down after each word,
biting them off like threads.
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