When Amy had finished her waffles and a tall glass of milk, Lacey led her back upstairs and got her quickly into her clothes: a fresh pair of jeans, stiff with newness, and a T-shirt with the word SASSY stenciled on it, the letters outlined with sequins. Only Sister Claire would have possessed the courage to choose something like that. Sister Arnette wouldn’t like the shirt, not at all—if she saw it she’d probably sigh and shake her head as she always did, souring the air of the room—but Lacey knew the shirt was perfect, just the sort of thing a little girl would want to wear. The sequins made the shirt special, and surely that’s what God would want for a child like Amy: some happiness, however small. In the bathroom she wiped the syrup off Amy’s cheeks and brushed out her hair, and when this was done she dressed herself, in her usual pleated gray skirt and white shirt and veil. Outside, the rain had stopped; a warm, unhurried sun was gathering in the yard outside. The day would be hot, Lacey guessed, a blast of warmth sailing in from the south behind the cold front that had pushed rain over the house all night.