Spring.
Sarah realized that instead of being in pain for every moment of her waking time, instead of coming out of sleep several times a night in tears, instead of the drudge of grief, she was experiencing periods of pain, very bad in the late afternoon and early evening for two to three hours, less in the hours after waking, though they were bad enough. Twice a day, like a tide rolling in. She was actually taking aspirin for the physical pain of grief. In between were long grey flat times when she felt nothing at all. A dead, dry world. At least she was not in pain then, her heart did not feel so heavy that she had to keep moving, or shifting her position to ease the weight of it. In these bleak and empty times she behaved towards herself as people do who suffer from a disability or a disease that causes them sudden attacks of pain: she was wary of anything that might 'bring it on': lines of emotional verse, a glimpse of a black tree against a starry sky, a sentimental tune — she could not bear to listen to the theme song from The Lucky Piece — or, worst of all, turning unexpectedly into a street where she had been with Henry or with Stephen. When the yearning returned, it was impossible to believe that Henry would not walk into her room or telephone her, because he must be needing her as much as she did him. She no longer bothered to tell herself this was lunacy. Anyway, it was passing. Through attacks of pain she held on to that. In the flat calm times, it was not possible to imagine the intensity of grief she had just experienced and would feel again. She knew that quite soon she would not remember, except as a fact, how terrible a time it had been. The pains of childbirth cannot be imagined in between pangs, let alone an hour, a day, a year afterward. One could see that there might be a reason for Nature not wanting the pains of childbirth to be remembered, but why grief pains? Why grief at all? What is it for?
She went back to visit her mother, in another attempt to get answers to questions, but failed. When her daughter — that is, Sarah's — telephoned from California, Sarah asked, 'Were you homesick as a child? When you went off for your summer holidays?' 'I don't remember. Yes, I think I was a bit.' 'Please try to remember.' 'Mother, it wasn't your fault you had to work, was it? Sometimes I did feel sorry for myself because I had a mother who worked. But now I work, don't I?'