How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Or Wendy herself, on the phone with Amelia, talking about the outfit a girl named Jessica Overbeck had worn to school the day before, until Amelia had said, Got to go. My mom's calling. Just that—nothing more than the thought of a mom saying it was time to get off the phone—was enough to change everything, take her from normal to crazy in about two seconds. (7.11)
Little things can trigger huge waves of grief and sadness in Wendy. Even Amelia mentioning her mother briefly on the phone causes her to completely fall apart; she'll never mention her own mom so casually again.
Quote #5
Sometimes it was a flash flood. Other times it came on like a slow-building rainstorm, the kind that gives you enough warning you might even have time to get inside before the clouds burst. Once it started, though, there was nothing to do but let the sorrow pound you like the most powerful current, the strongest waterfall. When the sorrow hit, small losses came crashing over you in one suffocating torrent. (7.12)
Grief isn't something Wendy can predict. It comes over her so unexpectedly sometimes that she doesn't know how to react or what to do until it passes. She's completely overwhelmed by her mother's death.
Quote #6
The music was louder now, and it pulled her down the hall, though there was another sound coming from the living room, the sound of weeping.
She saw him then, though it was hard to make him out with no light except for what came in through the window from the street. Josh, sitting on the floor by the stereo, his head in his hands, his shoulders heaving. (8.117-118)
Poor Josh tries so hard to hold it together when the kids are around, but when he thinks Wendy and Louie are asleep, he really lets his despair and sadness out. He's having a hard time, too, after all.