Chapter 9Even though her purpose in coming had been to talk to Maude, and perhaps stay with her for a few days, Fran was not sure how to begin discussing her problem. She shifted, as if the thinly padded old chair hurt her bones. When it squeaked a protest, she tried to force herself to be still.
Stillness was an InDinay trait. The people made a fine art of being still, one which Grandma Jonas had known well. For a moment, Fran pictured her, sitting at her loom beneath the gnarled juniper tree, staring into the unlimited distance of red stone and blue sky, the shuttle idle in her lap.
Grandma had tried to teach her about that stillness, but the child Fran, torn first by her parents’ bitter fighting and then her mother’s abandonment, could never be still long enough to find her grandmothe
