The Sabbathday River (34 page)
Read The Sabbathday River Online
Authors: Jean Hanff Korelitz
Heather would never understand, Naomi told Judith finally. She would never see that it was about so much more than herself, and her own act, whatever it might have been, alone in a field. If they waited for Heather to confront the symbolic weight of the story she inhabited, they would wait forever, so if this was important to Judith, Naomi urged
her to move forward alone, or at least without an active protagonist. Judith considered this. Then, the following week, she brought a woman named Nan Rubin up to see Heather. Nan was a Planned Parenthood friend from the city, and from Camp Thoreau before that, Judith said. She wrote for Ms. She spent three long afternoons with Heather in the little visiting room at the hospital, and was a little dazed when she emerged. She told her old bunkmate that she had never met such human opacity in her life, and went back to New York to write her piece. Almost immediately, the magazine sent a photographer to take Heather's picture through the mesh of the hospital interview room, and Naomi, when she saw it, was amazed at how lovely Heather was made to look: ethereal and hunted, like a doe gazing into headlights.
her to move forward alone, or at least without an active protagonist. Judith considered this. Then, the following week, she brought a woman named Nan Rubin up to see Heather. Nan was a Planned Parenthood friend from the city, and from Camp Thoreau before that, Judith said. She wrote for Ms. She spent three long afternoons with Heather in the little visiting room at the hospital, and was a little dazed when she emerged. She told her old bunkmate that she had never met such human opacity in her life, and went back to New York to write her piece. Almost immediately, the magazine sent a photographer to take Heather's picture through the mesh of the hospital interview room, and Naomi, when she saw it, was amazed at how lovely Heather was made to look: ethereal and hunted, like a doe gazing into headlights.
Was it going to be a slaughter? Naomi was afraid to ask. She was unwilling to burden Judith with the weight of her own fear, orâmore subtly now, more problematicâthe burden of her own ambivalence about Polly, and the thrill entwined with her rage when she thought about Heather convicted, Heather sent away forever, and Polly hers to watch and love. She had shameful fantasiesâshameful on more than one levelâof taking Polly, redolent in frills and patent leather, to
The Nutcracker
at Lincoln Center, or watching her sing slave spirituals in the immense auditorium at the Ethical Culture Society, her sweet face, aged six, aged ten, amid the sweet faces of other children.
The Nutcracker
at Lincoln Center, or watching her sing slave spirituals in the immense auditorium at the Ethical Culture Society, her sweet face, aged six, aged ten, amid the sweet faces of other children.
Polly was dredging language from the air around her now, pulling it to herself, greedy to make herself known. Naomi, looking into her eyes, saw the exponential surge of intelligence, and only sporadically remembered to feel regretful that Heather was missing this. Polly never asked for her mother, and Naomi noticed that the little girl did not appear at all confused by the shift in maternal personnel. Early on she had endowed Naomi with a name that sounded like “Neema,” a collaboration, she thought, of Naomi and Mama. “Neema up,” she would instruct. “Neema juice.” She was not affectionate, particularly, but she liked to lay a proprietary handâoften sticky with apple cider or gritty with crumbsâat the base of Naomi's throat, patting the revealed triangle of winter-pale skin. It was a sweet gesture, a little baffling, but in lieu of kisses or baby hugs Naomi welcomed its reassurance. As for herself, she kissed Polly whenever she could, and took as her chosen lullabies Meg Christian songs, which even Meg Christian might not have found appropriate for an eighteen-month-old:
So many years I've been bitter,
wanting
to be someone else. Nature had formed me,
and
the world had
conformed
me into thinking I must be less than the
bravest and
the best, better find me
a
nest to take care
of, and
let somebody stronger take care
of
me. But now I'm glad to be
a woman â¦
Sometimes she caught herself like this, crooning feminist anthems, dressing Polly in black coveralls and peasant shirts made by peasant collectives in Central America (these had to be specially ordered from New York), and was sufficiently acute to find herself a little ridiculous. If she were mine, Naomi thought, this is how I would raise her, that's all, to grow up and write her name on the world. But when she thoughtâwhen she made herself thinkâof Heather triumphant, Heather exonerated of this cruel absurdity, and Polly restored to that house and that mother on Sabbath Creek Road, she knew instead that Polly would grow up to be like Heather, a slate on which the world wrote.
So many years I've been bitter,
wanting
to be someone else. Nature had formed me,
and
the world had
conformed
me into thinking I must be less than the
bravest and
the best, better find me
a
nest to take care
of, and
let somebody stronger take care
of
me. But now I'm glad to be
a woman â¦
Sometimes she caught herself like this, crooning feminist anthems, dressing Polly in black coveralls and peasant shirts made by peasant collectives in Central America (these had to be specially ordered from New York), and was sufficiently acute to find herself a little ridiculous. If she were mine, Naomi thought, this is how I would raise her, that's all, to grow up and write her name on the world. But when she thoughtâwhen she made herself thinkâof Heather triumphant, Heather exonerated of this cruel absurdity, and Polly restored to that house and that mother on Sabbath Creek Road, she knew instead that Polly would grow up to be like Heather, a slate on which the world wrote.
But this was far down inside her, deep and safe, obscured by the great weight of her fury at the injustice Heather was suffering, and Pollyâwho after all deserved her motherâwas suffering. Naomi found herself calling old friends, at night after Polly was asleep, reporting the outrage unfolding up here in the remote north, beyond the safe pales of their academic groves. After these months of local myopia, it seemed incredible to her that anyone could know nothing about this, about what was happening in Goddard, and she heard herself shrieking Heather's story over and over to these women she had once known so well, until the story seemed reduced to its essence: a working-class woman, a single mother, seduced and abandoned by a classic male user and left alone to raise a child unacknowledged and unsupported by its father, a strong woman indicted by a community intolerant of her independence, a woman whose sexuality was abhorred, whose fertility was suspect, and whose child was shunned, a scapegoat accused on the flimsiest of non-evidence of the most heinous of acts, preemptively convicted, preemptively condemned to be locked up forever and to lose her daughter. Unspeakable. Repellent. Horrifying.
She didn't know what she expected. Surely she did not think they would all charter a bus and set off from their own lives to insert themselves into this unfolding disaster. She was not thinking that, no. Because they were all tired, these busy women. They were studying for bar exams, and forming Womanspirit covens, which convened on Boston Common or the Sheep Meadow at dawn, and finding black
childrenâthat is, the right black children, the black children of Afro-American Studies professors and civil rights attorneysâfor their own white children to play with, so that their children would not have the ethnically homogeneous childhoods they had had themselves.
childrenâthat is, the right black children, the black children of Afro-American Studies professors and civil rights attorneysâfor their own white children to play with, so that their children would not have the ethnically homogeneous childhoods they had had themselves.
So what else was going on? they wanted to know. And Naomi, thwarted, told again the old, old stories of the dissolution of her marriage, which most of them knew already. It surprised her how stale this felt, and far away.
And did she ever hear from Daniel now? And did she know what he was doing?
What was he doing, Naomi thought, because this was asked with a bit of an edge, as if they were asking about a specific thing, and whether she knew it or not. And so she let them tell her, and it turned out to be not that big a deal. Daniel was living with a woman named Katrina Frosch. This was said with some rather irritating respect.
Evidently it was generally known that Katrina Frosch had once lived with a guy who had once been a Weatherman.
Naomi hung up the phone and howled with bitter laughter. Ah, Daniel. Always the terrorist groupie, back to the very beginning. She remembered his abandoned Paul Robeson thesis speckled with “Amerika” s, and his evasive, self-effacing murmurs of support for Bernardine Dohrn and her demented crew, as if he were in constant contact with them, a lone plant left to linger aboveground for purposes implied but unrevealed. She remembered the
Uncle Che Wants You
poster he had brought home in Ithaca one day, for the bathroom (at least they'd
had
a bathroom). How nice for him, Naomi thought meanly, that he finally got somebody with the proper radical credentials, not another materialist
Hausfrau
who just wanted to shit in a capitalist toilet.
Uncle Che Wants You
poster he had brought home in Ithaca one day, for the bathroom (at least they'd
had
a bathroom). How nice for him, Naomi thought meanly, that he finally got somebody with the proper radical credentials, not another materialist
Hausfrau
who just wanted to shit in a capitalist toilet.
The trajectories of history, it occurred to Naomi, always look so much straighter in retrospect. And powerful! As if your life knew where it was going the whole time, even though back then it all felt so, well, flaccid and unsure of itself. But if Daniel was still on the path, Naomi mused, if he was passing the time down there in Woodstock doing what he'd always done, and if she was
also
still on the path, and had never changed her mind about anything that felt important, then how had they begun in the same place and ended up so far apart? They couldn't both be right, she thought. But was it possible that they could both be wrong?
also
still on the path, and had never changed her mind about anything that felt important, then how had they begun in the same place and ended up so far apart? They couldn't both be right, she thought. But was it possible that they could both be wrong?
It seemed to Naomi now that she no longer quite knew the things
she had known so effortlessly in the past. It seemed to her that she had operated on the gentle dinner-table indoctrinations of her childhood and the rather more energetic ones of her student years, and beyond these âbecause she was not
only
a vessel for other people's ideologies, surely notâshe had operated on pure instinct.
she had known so effortlessly in the past. It seemed to her that she had operated on the gentle dinner-table indoctrinations of her childhood and the rather more energetic ones of her student years, and beyond these âbecause she was not
only
a vessel for other people's ideologies, surely notâshe had operated on pure instinct.
Naomi had some faith in her instinct. Instinct told her she had not livedâwas not living
âbadly.
Instinct told her that what was happening to Heather was wrongâas plainly, reassuringly wrong as segregation or women denied control of their own bodies. In the distracted voices of her old friends, above the chatter of their children and spouses in their far-off kitchens, Naomi had expected to hear at least an echo of her own outrage, but she had heard only sighs and regret, a kind of
yuck yuck well that's patriarchy for you!
It seemed impossible that she was the last one out here, she thought, putting down the phone, the last little child in the hide-and-seek game, valiantly, rigidly, stubbornly,
stupidly
enduring the mud and the cold as night fell around her and all the other children went in for dinner. And she hated this. She hated the burden of pretending there were other people holding the banner and not just her, when it
was
just herâtrawling along with this long white flag behind her and no one to pick it up out of the mud. Always a bride! And here she comes, Naomi Roth: army of one, inheritor of the Fannie Lou Hamer mantle of honor, founder and sole member of the northern New Hampshire chapter of Sisterhood Is Powerful â¦
âbadly.
Instinct told her that what was happening to Heather was wrongâas plainly, reassuringly wrong as segregation or women denied control of their own bodies. In the distracted voices of her old friends, above the chatter of their children and spouses in their far-off kitchens, Naomi had expected to hear at least an echo of her own outrage, but she had heard only sighs and regret, a kind of
yuck yuck well that's patriarchy for you!
It seemed impossible that she was the last one out here, she thought, putting down the phone, the last little child in the hide-and-seek game, valiantly, rigidly, stubbornly,
stupidly
enduring the mud and the cold as night fell around her and all the other children went in for dinner. And she hated this. She hated the burden of pretending there were other people holding the banner and not just her, when it
was
just herâtrawling along with this long white flag behind her and no one to pick it up out of the mud. Always a bride! And here she comes, Naomi Roth: army of one, inheritor of the Fannie Lou Hamer mantle of honor, founder and sole member of the northern New Hampshire chapter of Sisterhood Is Powerful â¦
Sisterhood, she thought, is pathetic.
Sisterhood, she observed, could not be enforced.
Moreover, she really didn't want to have Heather Pratt for a sister, anyway.
But the trial was near now, and her seat was assigned: left of the aisle (of course!) and foursquare behind the accused. Judith was counting on her, and Heather too, she supposed, and in his own way Charter and his hordes of the righteous. It was all so old and tired, Naomi thought, and she was old, and too tired for this now, and for all the efforts she had made, her handsâthis time of year, always at this time of year, and nothing to do with the babies she had touched, Naomi told herselfâwere not quite clean.
Theme and Variation
DON'T COME FOR JURY SELECTION, JUDITH HAD said. Why get depressed before it's absolutely necessary?
And it was as bad as she'd warned, she told Naomi, reporting in nightly phone calls, her voice wrung with exhaustion. Four days in a row the prospective jurors had come through the courtroom and the jury box, like sheep through a dip, bobbing along in their bland prejudices. Many of them glared at Heather outright, and one woman, plainly pregnant, said she didn't think she could stand to be in the same room as the girl, as if there were some awful thing coming off Heather, some pestilent fog like Cecil B. DeMille's Angel of Death in
The Ten Commandments,
that might poison her own bright child. Only a few had not heard about the case, and those, when they gleaned the elements involved, seemed so horrified that they looked pleadingly at the judge to release them. Judith only wished she herself might be released so easily.
The Ten Commandments,
that might poison her own bright child. Only a few had not heard about the case, and those, when they gleaned the elements involved, seemed so horrified that they looked pleadingly at the judge to release them. Judith only wished she herself might be released so easily.
There were a few, she said to Naomi, who seemed capable of distinguishing fictional from factual, and these Judith accepted, even in cases
where they acknowledged reading about the case. One social worker she desperately wanted was dispatched by Charter's peremptory challenge. Another prospective juror, an amiable gay man who taught at a junior college near Warren, dashed her hopes when he said that he honestly didn't think he could put aside the opinion he'd already formed, that Heather Pratt could not possibly have committed the crimes with which she was charged, and that therefore some police impropriety must have played a part in her interrogation. He was out of the courtroom within seconds of having spoken these words. Charter did not even have to use one of his peremptories.
where they acknowledged reading about the case. One social worker she desperately wanted was dispatched by Charter's peremptory challenge. Another prospective juror, an amiable gay man who taught at a junior college near Warren, dashed her hopes when he said that he honestly didn't think he could put aside the opinion he'd already formed, that Heather Pratt could not possibly have committed the crimes with which she was charged, and that therefore some police impropriety must have played a part in her interrogation. He was out of the courtroom within seconds of having spoken these words. Charter did not even have to use one of his peremptories.
Judith, for her part, shot through most of her allowed challenges on the first day, and the rest on the second, watching the number sink, like somebody waiting for her money to run out and calculating when she must begin to starve. She had no choice; they were so terrible, these people, with their palpable disgust for Heather and for Judith herself. They looked at Charter even as Judith was asking them questions, they were that unwilling to engage with anything she might bring to bear on the issues at hand. She began to lower her standards: ignorance was acceptable, imbecility not; distaste for the accused was preferable to outright, visible revulsion; people who had read about the case in the newspaper were better than people who'd heard it through the grapevine. And so, inevitably, they began to build a jury. Open-minded? Let's say, not closed entirely. Capable of hearing the truth? Naomi asked, and she heard Judith, far away on the other side of Goddard, sigh into the telephone. Whatever
that
was, Judith said.
that
was, Judith said.
On the Tuesday they were set to begin, Judith telephoned Naomi early, even before Polly was awake, to tell Naomi she should wear a skirt. And stockings.
“Stockings?” Naomi grumbled, half asleep. She hadn't owned any in years.
“It's important. You're going to be sitting behind us. You need to be completely unobjectionable.”
“That's disgraceful,” Naomi said. She regretted it instantly. “Listen, of course, I'll stop on the way into town and get something.”
“I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important,” Judith said shortly. “You're perfectly right that it shouldn't matter, but it does. So if you're going to come at all, you've got to promise me thatâ”
“I know.” She sat up. “I know. I'm sorry. Christ.” She noted the clock. “You're up early.”
“I've been up for a while,” Judith said. “I'm not a natural at this, you know.”
“You
are,”
Naomi soothed. “Heather couldn't have a more suitable advocate.”
are,”
Naomi soothed. “Heather couldn't have a more suitable advocate.”
Judith was silent. Then Naomi heard a small dark laugh. “I don't know if that's a compliment.”
“Of course it's a compliment,” Naomi said. “I mean, think what you've been able to accomplish already.”
What Judith had been able to accomplish already was a showdown over Naomi's appearance on Charter's list of potential witnesses. She'd argued, in a pre-trial motion, that Naomi's experience of discovering the bodies of the two infants had no bearing on the issues being decided at trial, and that Charter had only listed her in an attempt to remove her from the courtroom and deny Heather the support of her only friend, the woman who was caring for her child. Not so, Charter had claimed. He counted on Naomi's testimony to help jurors “discover” the babies' bodies as she herself had discovered them, to impress upon the jurors the extent of the babies' injuries.
But surely the medical examiner would be able to establish this, Judith countered. Surely there was nothing a lay person could add. And with so few potential benefits, she hardly thought Charter would call a witness whose antipathy toward the prosecution was so well known to him.
The judge, Hayes by name, corpulent and with a tendency to plant his lantern jaw atop his two thumbs in a posture of concentration, turned to Charter. Was this in fact known to him? he asked.
Charter said that he did not consider Naomi's feelings to be relevant, one way or another. He would not be denied such an important witness just because the defendant needed a cheering section.
Then could Mr. Charter explain why, with the trial about to begin, he had never contacted his important witness to go over her testimony?
“I'd like an offer of proof, your honor,” Judith said, facing the judge. “It is important to my client to have her friend here. I'd like to know exactly what Mr. Charter hopes Ms. Roth's testimony will reveal. Perhaps we can stipulate to some information and save everybody some time.”
Which sounded reasonable to the judge. He looked to Charter, but Charter wouldn't budge.
Or, Judith suggested brightly, as if she were only now thinking of this,
they could compromise by having Charter agree to call Naomi as his first witness. After that, Naomi would be free to remain in the courtroom for the duration of the trial.
they could compromise by having Charter agree to call Naomi as his first witness. After that, Naomi would be free to remain in the courtroom for the duration of the trial.
Charter glared at her, and Judith smiled. He had no wish to call Naomi at all, of course. But now, just possibly, he might be forced to. And if he went first with Naomi's testimony, Judith would be able to establish some positive impressions of Heather's character at the outset.
“Well, that's an interesting suggestion,” said Hayes with approval. “And I would think that's probably the place for this testimony, if it's about discovering the bodies. Right at the beginning should work well for you, Mr. Charter.”
Grimly, Charter smiled. Judith smiled, too. Then she went back to her office and broke the news to a horrified Naomi, who hadn't even known about the witness list.
She didn't want to testify, Naomi insisted. And there was nothing to testify
to
! She'd only found them; she didn't know anything
about
them. Judith made soothing noises. Charter didn't want her to testify either, but now he had to put her on the stand. And then she proceeded to list a few of the points Naomi would make when she got there.
to
! She'd only found them; she didn't know anything
about
them. Judith made soothing noises. Charter didn't want her to testify either, but now he had to put her on the stand. And then she proceeded to list a few of the points Naomi would make when she got there.
“We might not get to you today,” Judith said now, “but even so, you need to appear conservative.”
“Of course,” Naomi said ironically. “I'm a prosecution witness, after all.”
“You're Heather's witness. And he'll try to bait you, but you need to keep cool. Your character has to vouch for her character, all the time.”
All right. Naomi hung up the phone and took advantage of the continuing silence from the next room to hunt out Polly's things for the day. Mrs. Horgan was being very kind about the arrangements, and Naomi appreciated her sensitivity, but her idea of suitable toys was a Barbie in the hand of each little girl and a plastic gun in the hand of each little boy. Naomi was sending Polly off with her own suitable books and gender nonspecific stuffed animals, and a
Free to Be You and Me
tape to be played at nap time. There was no way around Mrs. Horgan's American cheese and Wonder bread, but Naomi filled a bag with apples and dried apricots and bottles of organic grape juice. Polly slept on soundly, even as the first day of her mother's trial began.
Free to Be You and Me
tape to be played at nap time. There was no way around Mrs. Horgan's American cheese and Wonder bread, but Naomi filled a bag with apples and dried apricots and bottles of organic grape juice. Polly slept on soundly, even as the first day of her mother's trial began.
Naomi washed her face and wound her hair into a heavy bun, sticking it into place with a fistful of metal hairpins. She dressed in a black wool
skirt, a little snug across her rear, a thin white sweater, and a black wool jacket that didn't quite match the skirt; that black always goes with black is a myth propagated by urban dwellers, she thought. She did not recognize herself, exactly, though there was a certain resemblance, like a variation on a family theme. She looked unobjectionable, and a little old. She went to wake Polly.
skirt, a little snug across her rear, a thin white sweater, and a black wool jacket that didn't quite match the skirt; that black always goes with black is a myth propagated by urban dwellers, she thought. She did not recognize herself, exactly, though there was a certain resemblance, like a variation on a family theme. She looked unobjectionable, and a little old. She went to wake Polly.
Naomi had not been to a trial since her own, years before, on charges of disturbing the peace in Ithacaâa lie-in at Day Hall over CIA recruitment on campus had gotten nasty. She walked up the granite steps of the Peytonville courthouse with a set jaw and a staunch refusal to acknowledge any grandeur in her surroundings. The shoddy behavior of shoddy men must not be in any way elevated by the presence of polished stone, or massive plaques of the names of local boys gone to soldiers, or fierce patriarchs chiseled out of boulders. This thing stank, irredeemably, and it galled her that she was obligated to dress for such a sham of truth seeking and justice, and to respect its rituals. She saw Judith at the top of the wide staircase, just inside the lobby, immaculate in a severe gray suit. She looked beautiful, Naomi thought, and she kissed Judith and told her so.
“Opening statements are important,” Judith said. “Juries remember you this way.”
“Nice pearls,” said Naomi.
“Thanks. Nice stockings.” She smiled. “Hey, it's for a good cause.”
There was press around, Naomi saw, the local writers looking cowed by their national counterparts, and there were faces from Goddard, some of which acknowledged her. Then Charter came through, trailing staff and reporters, signaling his stature with the intense cadence of his gait. He stopped before Judith and Naomi and nodded. “Mrs. Friedman.”
She gave him a cool look. “I prefer Ms., Mr. Charter.”
“Well”âhe smiled disingenuouslyâ“I'll do my best. Old habits are sometimes difficult to break.” He turned to Naomi. “Ms. Roth.”
“Hello,” Naomi said. She was embarrassed to hear the smallness of her own voice.
“Ordinarily, as I'm sure Ms. Friedman has explained to you, you would not be permitted to enter the courtroom until you were called to testify.” He waited for her reaction: the flash of alarm, the glance at Judith. “But because I am going to call you as the state's first witness,
I'm going to let the formality pass. You are welcome to hear opening arguments.”
I'm going to let the formality pass. You are welcome to hear opening arguments.”
He was extending himself, she realized. He wanted her to feel grateful to him when she testified. Naomi smiled. “Well, thank you.”
“I will be asking you simple, specific questions,” he went on, his goal evidently attained. “If you could direct yourself to them, I would appreciate it. There is no reason to bring your personal feelings about either Miss Pratt or myself into your answers. We all want the same thing here.”
She started at this extraordinary statement. “Mr. Charterâ”
“It's not for you to decide. It's not for me to decide. We'll give
them
the information”âhe dipped his head to the side, as if the jury were arrayed before them in this crowded hallwayâ“and they'll do the deciding. Please do not contaminate this process with your opinions or your ideology. If you can assure me that you will do that, then I will make the same assurance to you.”
them
the information”âhe dipped his head to the side, as if the jury were arrayed before them in this crowded hallwayâ“and they'll do the deciding. Please do not contaminate this process with your opinions or your ideology. If you can assure me that you will do that, then I will make the same assurance to you.”
“Naomi will answer your questions to the extent of her abilities,” Judith broke in. “She will make no unsolicited comments. And I thank you for your sensitivity to her situation.” She placed a hand on Naomi's arm. “Let's go inside.”
They walked past him. Naomi was dazed. “What was thatâ”
“Damage control,” Judith whispered. “It's all right. We talked about what might happen when you're up there. It's going to be fine.”
They moved forward, through a courtroom already dense with people. It was not a large room, but it was made to seem so by its two large windows, which gave it a lofty air, and by its ceiling, which was also high, though dangling a symmetry of silver vents and pipes. Naomi took an empty seat behind the defense table to the left of the judge's bench, and the wood joints of her chair gave an ominous creak. Judith unpacked her briefcase. Charter appeared not to have a briefcase of his own, though his aides were unpacking the ones they had carried. There was so much paper, Naomi thought, looking at the piles and stacks of files, and the protruding bits of black-and-white photographs. So much from so little, and all of it brought into being by her. How she wished she could take it back now. She wished that she had pushed them back into the water, those babies, weighting them down so that they would never surface and be known, or be photographed and fought over and used to wreck the lives of living people. If only she had left them there,
and the water had taken them away downstream or buried them too deeply for her to touch. If only, she thought grimly, they'd been just a little farther out of reach, or she'd been a little less intent on reaching out; but then she was always sticking her fingers in, wasn't that the point? And her nose, where it wasn't welcome. The point of a hairpin pricked her scalp, and she reached back to adjust it.
and the water had taken them away downstream or buried them too deeply for her to touch. If only, she thought grimly, they'd been just a little farther out of reach, or she'd been a little less intent on reaching out; but then she was always sticking her fingers in, wasn't that the point? And her nose, where it wasn't welcome. The point of a hairpin pricked her scalp, and she reached back to adjust it.
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