The Little Friend

by Donna Tartt

And—since this willful amnesia had kept Robin’s death from being translated into that sweet old family vernacular which smoothed even the bitterest mysteries into comfortable, comprehensible form—the memory of that day’s events had a chaotic, fragmented quality, bright mirror-shards of nightmare which flared at the smell of wisteria, the creaking of a clothesline, a certain stormy cast of spring light.

In dreams he was evasive and distant, withholding something. She longed for some word from him but he never met her eyes, never spoke.

Donna Tartt what are you doing... Im crying on the 5 page

Consequently their relationship with their dead brother was of the most intimate sort, his strong, bright, immutable character shining changelessly against the vagueness and vacillation of their own characters, and the characters of people that they knew; and they grew up believing that this was due to some rare, angelic incandescence of nature on Robin’s part, and not at all to the fact that he was dead.

Harriet, the baby, was neither pretty nor sweet. Harriet was smart.

Her sophisms were grounded undeniably in the Bible, yet flew in the face of common sense and everything that was right.

Like Robin’s birthday and the anniversary of his death, Christmas was especially hard for her and everyone knew it.

Sleeping or waking, the world was a slippery game: fluid stage sets, drift and echo, reflected light. And all of it sifting like salt between her numbed fingers.

She felt a flutter of indignation. What right did this F. Dudley Willard, whoever he was, have to be alive and laughing in the Plaza Hotel with an orchestra playing in the Palm Court and his glossy girl in the satin gown laughing back at him?