The Pinballs: Chapters 16–26

He paused and then sat in the wicker rocker.

“Yes. Because she was always touching people and hugging them and telling them how she felt about them. It seemed to come so natural to her. It appealed to me.”

“Yes,” Thomas J replied earnestly. “I can believe it.”

Her voice, which had not been steady since 1945, wavered more than usual.

She tried to bluff. “What makes you think it’s a TV?”

"No!"
The word was so agonized that Carlie stepped back from the bed.

“I got some little decals and put them on my fingernails. Did you notice?”

Then she turned to Thomas J and said, “Come on, the nurse’ll be chasing us out of here with hypodermic needles in a minute.”

He said he had just gotten a contract to build an eight-unit town house.

It was the first time he had cried since the accident. It was like the turning on of a spigot. He sobbed, and the tears rolled down his cheeks in streams.

The nurse on the floor was passing the door and heard the commotion.

“Who do you love?” she would say.
He would not know the answer.
“Well, do you love Ma-ma?” she would prompt.

He had climbed up into the chair, excited at his first real haircut, and the barber had looked at him and said, “Who’s been hacking at your hair, Son?” in an uncomplimentary way.

She was wearing her good black dress and her cameo pin, the same outfit her sister had worn.

I just mean that there are things I don’t like to remember—oh, like times people snubbed me at school—times people made me feel bad—and if I could just erase those things, Thomas J, I’d be a lot happier.