"In the zipper."
"Good. If the shoes take long, we are not wandering into every store that has a light-up floor. We get the shoes. We look at the socks if the socks are on sale. We get one thing from the food court if you have been a person and not a tornado. Then we go home and you practice before the day spends you."
Aaliyah's spoon paused. "The center's closed today. Miss Anita has a funeral."
"I know what day it is," Ruth said, not unkindly. "You have the keyboard. The keyboard did not die. It only wishes it had, some of those keys. You do the twenty minutes anyway. Grief in somebody else's family is not a holiday from your hands."
"I wasn't trying to make it a holiday."
"I know." Ruth came around the table and touched one of the beads, the cracked white one, as if checking that it was still willing to travel. "You look nice. Don't pick at the cardigan. It is clean. Clean is the part that counts. People who need a coat to be new are people with too much time."
Aaliyah smiled into the oatmeal. "You say that and you ironed your collar."