Ruth Williams still carried her dead baby. Its insides had come through its back, slowly, as she walked, and finally they’d jiggled so loose and slack that she stepped on them now and again.
Jim came along behind her, his face clotted up in the cold, his hand on her back—because he couldn’t see. Behind Jim, holding onto a length of clothesline, came the rest of the family.
People who saw Ruth leading, walking, tripping a little, slipping now and again-for visibility was good in the torchy night—said things and were sick or they screamed, and Ruth always smiled a little at their discomfiture.
Finally, Ruth threw it away.
They went faster, afterward—through Ferndale, down the main street, past the broken windows of all the stores.