ws the story the book tells and expects the sisters to be portrayed as cardboard saints is immediately disarmed. The surviving sister--Dede--is introduced, some thirty-four years after the murders, and she is hardly a saint. She shows impatience at yet another caller who wants to hear her story and help her keep her sisters' memories alive. She has obviously long ago grown weary of such calls and wants to get on with her life. However, she does agree to meet the woman, and it is clear that the memory of her sisters is very much alive in her. For example, waiting for the woman, Dede is not aware she has arrived until the car door is slammed with a "gunshot sound." Dede nervously and accidentally:
snip[s] her prize butterfly orchid. She picks up the fallen blossom and trims the stem, wincing. Perhaps this is the only way to grieve the big things--
...