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stopped her. “He’ll only say things that will hurt you more.”
    “Hurt? How could I be hurt more, Mama?”
    “Mae, please, don’t…”
    “I’ll beg. I’ll get down on my knees. I’ll tell him he was right. He was right.”
    “It won’t do any good. He said as far as he’s concerned his daughter is dead.”
    Mae swept past her. “I’m not dead!” The lady gestured for Sarah to stay in the room. She hastened after Mama, closing the door as she left. Sarah waited, hearing distant voices.
    Mama came back after a while. Her face was white, but she wasn’t crying anymore. “Come on, darling,” she said in a dull tone. “We’re leaving.”
    “Mae,” the lady said. “Oh, Mae…” She pressed something into her hand.
    “It’s all I have.”
    Mama didn’t say anything. A man’s voice came from another room, an angry, demanding voice. “I have to go,” the lady said. Mama nodded and turned away.
    When they reached the end of the tree-lined street, Mae opened her 33
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    hand and looked at the money her mother had placed in it. She gave a soft broken laugh. After a moment, she took Sarah’s hand and walked on, tears streaming down her cheeks.
    Mama sold her ruby ring and pearls. She and Sarah lived in an inn until the money gave out. Mama sold her music box, and for a while they lived quite comfortably in an inexpensive boardinghouse. Finally, she asked Sarah to give back the crystal swan, and with the money they got for it, they lived a long time in a rundown hotel before Mama found and settled them for good in a shack near the docks of New York.
    Sarah finally saw the sea. There was garbage floating in it. But still she liked it very much.
    Sometimes she would go down and sit on the wharf. She liked the salt smell and the ships coming in loaded with cargo. She liked the sounds of the water lapping at the pillars beneath her and the seagulls overhead.
    There were rough men at the docks and sailors who came from around the world. Some came to visit, and Mama would ask Sarah to wait outside until they left. They never stayed very long. Sometimes they pinched her cheek and said they would come back when she got a little bigger. Some said she was prettier than Mama, but Sarah knew that wasn’t true.
    She didn’t like them. Mama laughed when they came and acted as though she were happy to see them. But when they went away, she cried and drank whiskey until she fell asleep in the rumpled bed by the window.
    At seven years old, Sarah wondered if Cleo hadn’t been partly right about God’s truth.
    Then Uncle Rab came to live with them, and things got better. Not as many men came to visit, though they still did when Uncle Rab didn’t have any coins to jingle in his pockets. He was big and dull, and Mama treated him with affection. They slept together in the bed by the window, and Sarah had the cot on the floor.
    “He’s not too bright,” Mama said to her, “but he has a kind heart and he tries to provide for us. Times are hard, darling, and sometimes he can’t. He needs Mama’s help.”
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    Sometimes he just wanted to sit outside the door and get drunk and sing songs about women.
    When it rained, he would go to the inn down the road to be with his friends. Mama would drink and sleep. To pass the time, Sarah found tin cans and washed them until they shone like silver. She set them beneath the roof leaks. Then she would sit in the quiet shack with the rain beating down and listen to the music the drops made plinking into the tins.
    Cleo had been right about crying, too. Crying did no good. Mama cried and cried until Sarah wanted to cover her ears and never hear her again. All Mama’s crying never changed anything.
    When the other children mocked Sarah and called her mother names, she looked at them and said nothing. What they said was true; you couldn’t