“It’s like a checkerboard,” her father said.
“What is?”
“What you were saying. You think everything bears on one person’s dying, and b’God it’s another who does. One instant you see the black squares against the red and the next you see the red against the black.”
“Yes,” Mary said, somewhat in her mother’s uncertain tone.
“None of us know what we’re doing, any given moment.”
How you manage not to have religious faith, Hannah wanted to tell him, is beyond me. She held her tongue.
“A tale told by an idiot… signifying nothing.”
“Signifying something,” Andrew said, “but we don’t know what.”
“Just as likely. Choice between rattlesnake and skunk.”
“Jay knows what; now,” Mary said.
“I certainly won’t swear he doesn’t,” her father said.
“He does, Mary,” her aunt said.
“Of course he does,” Mary said.
Child, you’d better believe it, her aunt thought, disturbed by the “of course.”
“I wonder,” Catherine said; everyone turned towards her. “Mary’s suggestion-for-an epitaph-is very lovely and appropriate, but I wonder, whether people will quite-understand it.”
“Agh,” Joel growled.
“What if they don’t?” Andrew said.
Mary leaned across her. “Yes, Mama! What if they don’t! We understand it. Jay understands it. What do we care if they don’t!”
She was surprised and somewhat hurt by the violence of this attack. “It was merely something to be considered,” she said with dignity. “After all, it will be in a public place. Many people will see it besides ourselves. I’ve always supposed,
