As small girl Sethe, she was unimpressed. As grownup woman Sethe she was angry, but not certainat what. A mighty wish for Baby Suggs broke over her like surf. In the quiet following its splash,Sethe looked at the two girls sitting by the stove: her sickly, shallowminded boarder, her irritable,lonely daughter. They seemed little and far away.
"Paul D be here in a minute," she said.
Denver sighed with relief. For a minute there, while her mother stood folding the wash lost inthought, she clamped her teeth and prayed it would stop. Denver hated the stories her mother toldthat did not concern herself, which is why Amy was all she ever asked about. The rest was agleaming, powerful world made more so by Denver's absence from it. Not being in it, she hated itand wanted Beloved to hate it too, although there was no chance of that at all. Beloved took everyopportunity to ask some funny question and get Sethe going. Denver noticed how greedy she wasto hear Sethe talk. Now she noticed something more. The questions Beloved asked: "Where yourdiamonds?" "Your woman she never fix up your hair?" And most perplexing: Tell me yourearrings.
How did she know?
WAS shining and Paul D didn't like it. Women did what strawberry plants did before they shot outtheir thin vines: the quality of the green changed. Then the vine threads came, then the buds. Bythe time the white petals died and the mintcolored berry poked out, the leaf shine was gilded fightand waxy. That's how Beloved looked — gilded and shining. Paul D took to having Sethe onwaking, so that later, when he went down the white stairs where she made bread under Beloved'sgaze, his head was clear.