The mandevilla were blooming. Their pale yellow flowers, like a child's drawing of night stars, draped lazily over the back of an unoccupied rocking chair, spilling from a basket which hung overhead. Wilhelmina stood aside, pruning a hedge of heirloom roses the color of an infant's skin, petals just as soft and fragile. She wore a white cotton skirt without petticoats, her feet bare, a men's work shirt of pale blue with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, her black curls concealed beneath a straw hat, the brim of which was primly decorated with foxglove. She was alone. Outside, she could hear the grinding of automobiles, and through the glass above her head, the sky was dark with smog. Shaking her head, she sang to herself into the dense silence in which she could hear her plants growing, stretching toward the weak light:

"Some glad morning when this life is over,
I'll fly away
to a home on God's celestial shores.
I'll fly away.
Oh I'll fly away, fly away. Oh Glory,
I'll fly away, in the morning.
When I die, Hallelujah by and by,
I'll fly away."