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compression of her abdomen.
Although she already knew that the answer could not be cheerily optimistic,Leopard UGG Bailey Button boots, Celestina wondered, Is the baby likely to be . . .
normal?
I hope it will physician said, but his emphasis vas too solidly on the word hope.
In Room 724, standing alone at her sisters bedside, watching the girl sleep, Celestina told herself that she was coping well.
She could handle this unnerving development without calling in either of her parents.
Then her breath caught repeatedly in her breast as her throat tightened against the influx of air. One particularly difficult
inhalation dissolved into a sob, and she wept.
She was four years older than Phimie. They hadnt i;.mn a great deal of each other during the past three years, since
Celestina had come to San Francisco. Although distance and time press of her studies, and the busyness of daily life had
not made her forget that she loved Phimie, she had forgotten the purity and the power of love. Rediscovering it now,cheap Uggs Classic boots, she was
shaken so badly that she had to pull a chair to the side of the bed and sit down.
She hung her head, covered her face with her chilled hands, and wondered how her mother could sustain faith in God when
such terrible things could happen to someone as innocent as Phimie.
Near midnight, she returned to her apartment. Lights out, in bed, staring at the ceiling, she was unable to sleep.
The blinds were raised windows bare. Usually, she liked the smoky, reddish-gold glow of the city at night, but this once
it made her uneasy.
She was overcome by the odd notion that if she rose from the bed and went to the nearest window, she would discover the
buildings of the metropolis dark, every streetlamp extinguished. This eerie light would he rising, instead, from drainage grates
in the street and out of open manholes, not from the city, but from a netherworld below.
The inner eye of the artist, which she could never close even when she slept, ceaselessly sought form and design and
meaning, as it did in the ceiling above the bed. In the play of light and shadow across the hand-troweled plaster, she saw the
solemn faces of babies-deformed, peering beseechingly-and images of death.
Nineteen hours following Phimies admission to St. Marys, while the girl was undergoing the final tests ordered by Dr.
Daines beetled sky grew sullen in the early twilight, and the city once more arrayed itself in the red gesso and gold leaf
that had indirectly illuminated Celestinas apartment ceiling the previous night.
After a day of work pencil portrait of Nella Lombardi was finished. The second piece in the series-an extrapolation of
her appearance at age sixty-was begun.
Although Celestina had not slept in almost thirty-six hours, she was clearheaded with anxiety. At the moment, her hands
werent shaking;
lines and shading flowed smoothly from her pencil, as words might stream from the pen of a medium in a trance.
As she sat in a chair by the window, near Nellas bed, drawing on an angled lapboard, she conducted a quiet, one-sided
conversation with the comatose woman. She recounted stories about growing up with Phimie and was amazed by what a
trove she had.
Sometimes Nella seemed to be listening, although her eyes never opened and though she never moved. The silently
bouncing green light of the electrocardiograph maintained a steady pattern.
Shortly before dinner, an orderly and a nurse wheeled Phimie into the room. They carefully transferred her into bed.
The girl looked better than Celestina expected. Though tired, she was quick to smile,ugg button boots, and her huge brown eyes were clear.
Phimie wanted to see the finished portrait of Nella and the one herself that was half complete. Youll be famous one day,
Celie.
No one is famous in the next world, nor glamorous, nor titled, nor proud, she said, smiling as she quoted one of their
fathers most familiar sermons, nor powerful-
- nor cruel, nor hateful, nor envious, nor mean, Phimie recited, for all these are sicknesses of this fallen world-
- and now when the offering plate passes among you-
-give as if you are already an enlightened citizen of the next life-
