Stella stared at Motty’s face for a long time. The flickering lamplight made it seem as if she might be breathing. At any moment she’d open her eyes and say, What the hell you looking at? Motty’s glasses and the jar containing her teeth were in their usual spots atop the sewing machine. A Bible lay on the seat of a chair, open to a page late in the New Testament, one verse underlined. It was Stella’s own Bible, the one she’d left behind when she ran away from the place. She’d gotten it as a gift when she was twelve years old and remembered underlining that passage. Seal up those things which
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