'Mrs Hoakes, do you know what Sah is?'
'Sah? No.'
'I asked Melinda what she said yesterday in church and she said Sah.'
'Yes, that's what it sounded like. Did she say what it was?'
'I was hoping you knew.'
'No. It was the first time she said that.'
I was trying my best to console Mrs Hoakes. No matter how clumsy she is with emotions, she was the mother of this girl after all. However, nothing of whatever she was saying was consoling me. Even the non-conclusive "no's" she was giving me were leading me to dark wiring of what the implications of all this might be and it felt like I was being tricked by the entire family and their stories. I thought at that instance that she might have planned all this: the painting of the room, the story about the lottery numbers and even the equations
