Summary

At the beginning of Section 11, and in the very early morning, Shay goes outside. She kneels in the part of the garden to which Bertine directed her, in a posture that the text suggests is similar to that of her own mother in a garden. She scrapes out a hole with her fingers, puts in the packet, covers it up, and makes the ground look normal. She goes back to bed, the text commenting that “in her bones she knows that this problem of Kristos and the house is part of a greater problem, a very real matter of propitiation, of settling otherworldly accounts” (46).

The next day, shortly after the arrival of Senna’s two nieces from Italy, Kristos has a shouting match with someone on his phone and then storms out, saying he has to take care of some...