How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
She played music for dying people, going to their homes and even to the hospital to serenade them into the next life. I had never heard of such a thing, and I would sit at the table drinking sweet iced tea, wondering if this was the reason June smiled so little. Maybe she was around death too much (5.23)
Lily is not the only person preoccupied with death in this book. As this passage notes, June tries to use her love of music to help comfort people who are terminally ill. Very noble . . . and very depressing.
Quote #5
'The first day we were here May told us that April died.'
'And that's when it all started with May,' she said, then looked at me like she was trying to decide whether to go on (5.103-104).
Here, Lily and August are discussing how empathetic May is. May cries uncontrollably whenever she hears about something bad happening to another person, even someone she doesn't know. August explains that this tendency is rooted in May's loss of her twin sister, April, when they were 15. May has never been the same since April's suicide.
Quote #6
May lay in two feet of water with a huge river stone on top of her chest. It weighted her body, holding it on the bottom. Looking at her, I thought, She will get up now. August will roll away the stone, and May will come up for air, and we will go back to the house and get her dry. I wanted to reach down and touch her, shake her shoulder a little. She couldn't have died out here in the river. That would be impossible (10.29).
Although a trip to her "wailing wall" and/or a bath could often relieve May's distress and sorrow upon hearing something unpleasant, she is unable to cope with Zach's arrest, so she commits suicide. This is the moment when Lily, August, June, and Rosaleen find her body. Definitely not one of the book's happier moments, that's for sure.