It becomes not just a small matter of trust ...Crazy Larry seems to desperately need someone to believe him ...to believe in him.  But more than that ...it will help him believe in himself.

Maggie wants so much to help Crazy Larry, but at what cost?  How much can be expected of a person, especially when it involves something that a person is firmly against?  Maggie knows she is not supposed to have access to the fourth floor, but that is where Crazy Larry wants her to go ...and presents it as a matter of not only trusting him, but helping him with his sanity.

Maggie feels it would be insane on her part ...but she goes with him to that fourth floor.  And in a few minutes she is about to question her own sanity ...by what she sees.

This is a the second book in a series of four books, so back to where we left you in So Loved ...,things appeared to be improving for Ruth and her mom. Not to be discouraged, Ruth is just presently having a nightmare ...dreaming that something has happened to her baby.  Her mom enters her bedroom to comfort her and tell her it was just a dream.  And she shows her that Aleah is okay, resting peacefully in her crib.

But not all nightmares happen at night.  The worst are those that happen during the time we are awake ...wide awake, and we know we're not asleep; that it is really happening.  We may wish we were just having a nightmare, and that we could just wake up and everything will be fine ...but the reality is, everything is not fine.  Ruth has one of these moments when the police come for her.  She is told she's being charged with murder.

As Ruth is brought into the courtroom to be arraigned, she sees Mom there ...sitting next to Dad?  And she is holding his hand ?!?

The Curious Whether and How ...a line from a Walt Whitman poem, entitled, "There Was a Child Went Forth".  How this applies to this story, is in the same way we often apply our thoughts to every day life, especially when it occasions not to be every day life ...not just another day.  We often face things beyond our human capacity to cope with ...and during these times we are more than curious whether and how we will get through it.