Her hair has thinned to wisps. She is emaciated. Her breathing is labored, her lungs ravaged by tuberculosis. Her shoulders hunch forward, her spine following the curve of a question mark. Chaplain Poelchau sits down beside her. From the pocket of his robe he withdraws the orange and the photograph. It’s a picture of Georgina Fish. Mildred peers at it wordlessly. She finds her pencil stub and writes a note on the back: The face of my mother expresses everything that I want to say at this moment. This face was with me all through these last months.
