Summary

Chapter 47 marks the first anniversary of Robin’s parents’ deaths, and a year since Nomsa disappeared. Edith is away on business so Beauty and Robin decide to make shrines to their loved ones. They each collect a few meaningful objects and place them with candles onto two small tables. Robin says she wishes she had something for Mabel too, but then decides that because Mabel chose to leave her, she did not need to mourn her in the same way as her parents.

Beauty says a prayer for Keith and Jolene and Robin flinches when she says their names. She says it is because she has never heard a black person call them by their first names. Robin asks Beauty if she thinks heaven changes people and makes them forget about skin color. Beauty cautiously tells her that she thinks heaven makes people...