Chapter 8The statement was part of the change Sharon began to bring about in the weeks she spent "at home" in St. Louis after her father's death. And it was intensified and finally reinforced by that other change that reached and slowly overcame John Smith after he discovered that he could be a good teacher.
Sharon had remained oddly unmoved at her father's funeral. During the elaborate ceremonies she sat erect and hard-faced, and her expression did not change as she had to pass her father's body, radiant and plump in the ornate coffin. But in the cemetery, as the coffin was lowered into the narrow hole covered by artificial turf, she lowered her expressionless face into her hands, not lifting it until someone touched her shoulder.
After the funeral, she spent several days in her old roo
