Unless by Carol Shields

Author:Carol Shields
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780007154616
Publisher: San Val
Published: 2002-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

“We’re like visitors,” says Chris.

I hold my tongue. To ask too much might unsettle the exceedingly fragile arrangements they’ve worked out.

Passivity has the capacity to arouse violence, and this is what I worry about mostly, that Norah will not be able to defend herself. I’m deluded enough to believe that Chris’s and Natalie’s Saturday excursions help to keep her safe, though at a risk to their own safety. I go along with it, the Saturday visitations, and wave the girls off for the day blithely, as though this new routine might succeed, actually rescuing a portion of what’s been lost.

The first time they went they threw their arms around her and pleaded and cried.

“She smiled at us,” Chris reported. “Just sat there and smiled horribly and said she was happy to see us.”

“She stank,” Natalie said another time. “Kronk City. They do have showers at the hostel. You’d think she’d remember how to use a shower.”

“She doesn’t stink,” Chris said, anxious to reassure me. “It’s just that street smell.”

“She doesn’t really talk to us,” Natalie says.

“At first we sat about ten feet away from her. We didn’t want to freak her out,”

“As if she isn’t already—”

“Now we sit right next to her. Natalie sits on one side and I sit on the other.”

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