How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Money worried at her the way waves worried at the shoreline, always nibbling away at the soft sand. Her money seemed to run out earlier each week. (7.26)
Money troubles and anxiety attacks are two things that can compound themselves quickly. Once you get behind financially, your money’s spent before you get it; thus, the running out earlier every week. And of course the lack of money causes anxiety. Sometimes it can really seem like troubles restart themselves.
Quote #8
Her eyes stopped smiling first, and then her mouth. The holes in her sweaters got bigger. Meanwhile, people talked and she didn’t know what to say so they could understand. (7.28)
This may be the most fundamental definition of mental illness: the feeling you can’t bridge the gap between you and the rest of the world; that every day, you are able to communicate with others less and less.
Quote #9
So Mrs. Liza did about the only thing left to her to do. She went away into the farthest place she could find. They cut her hair short. She didn’t notice that, lying there, nor when they fed her or changed the sheets. Her eyes never moved, as if what she was looking at was so far away small that if she looked off for a second, it would be gone. (7.29)
Although she never names her mother’s mental illness, what Dicey is describing sounds like catatonic schizophrenia, in which a person is physically immobilized by delusions. We wonder how this story would have ended if folks in the '80s had understood mental illness the way they do now.