Denver knew that her mother was through with it — for now anyway. The single slow blink of hereyes; the bottom lip sliding up slowly to cover the top; and then a nostril sigh, like the snuff of acandle flame — signs that Sethe had reached the point beyond which she would not go.

　　"Well, I think the baby got plans," said Denver. "What plans?""I don't know, but the dress holding on to you got to mean something.""Maybe," said Sethe. "Maybe it does have plans."Whatever they were or might have been, Paul D messed them up for good. With a table and a loudmale voice he had rid 124 of its claim to local fame. Denver had taught herself to take pride in thecondemnation Negroes heaped on them; the assumption that the haunting was done by an evilthing looking for more. None of them knew the downright pleasure of enchantment, of not suspecting but knowing the things behind things. Her brothers had known, but it scared them;Grandma Baby knew, but it saddened her. None could appreciate the safety of ghost company.

　　Even Sethe didn't love it.

　　She just took it for granted — like a sudden change in the weather.

　　But it was gone now. Whooshed away in the blast of a hazelnut man's shout, leaving Denver'sworld flat, mostly, with the exception of an emerald closet standing seven feet high in the woods.

　　Her mother had secrets — things she wouldn't tell; things she halfway told. Well, Denver had themtoo. And hers were sweet — sweet as lily-of-the-valley cologne.

　　Sethe had given little thought to the white dress until Paul D came, and then she rememberedDenver's interpretation: plans. The morning after the first night with Paul D, Sethe smiled justthinking about what the word could mean. It was a luxury she had not had in eighteen years andonly that once. Before and since, all her effort was directed not on avoiding pain but on gettingthrough it as quickly as possible. The one set of plans she had made — getting away from SweetHome — went awry so completely she never dared life by making more.

　　Yet the morning she woke up next to Paul D, the word her daughter had used a few years ago didcross her mind and she thought about what Denver had seen kneeling next to her, and thought alsoof the temptation to trust and remember that gripped her as she stood before the cooking stove inhis arms. Would it be all right? Would it be all right to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count onsomething? She couldn't think clearly, lying next to him listening to his breathing, so carefully,carefully, she had left the bed.

　　Kneeling in the keeping room where she usually went to talk-think it was clear why Baby Suggswas so starved for color. There wasn't any except for two orange squares in a quilt that made theabsence shout. The walls of the room were slate-colored, the floor earth-brown, th............