O my God! I'm
just so upset. And now that it has happened everything is so different.
I could tear out my tongue for what I want to say and I can't say
anything--not so much your father and I--at least we had Albert to help
make it up to us. We know what a son he has been, don't we, Ben, but to
think of him, the upstandingest boy that ever wore shoe leather--him
having to suffer for it--"
"Carrie, Carrie, it's time to go over all that later. Let's get our
bearings. Lilly, you've not changed except for the bones kind of
setting and--"
"I don't like you in those shirt waists. Too mannish. The lace I used to
dress that child in! The way I used to love to poke in the
bins--sacrificed for her. These years--years. Lilly--tell me you've been
a good girl--that your sinning has only been against us--child that I
raised--Lilly--"
They were locked in embrace again, Mrs. Becker blown hot and cold by the
ever-shifting clouds of her emotions, the two men standing by in a state
of helplessness that was always in inverse proportion to the lavalike
eruptions from the crater of her nerves.
"Mother, father and I will leave you alone for a while and you have your
talk together first--"
"No! She's your wife.
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