“There was something faintly comic about it all, DeeDee found herself thinking as she scrambled around the floor, her grandmother screaming nearby. The next instant, she marveled at life’s paradoxes, the way human nature perceives humor even at the height of disaster... Wally Jr. has a similar insight: he woke up the next morning surprised to find he had slept through the night. He was unfamiliar with the way a breathless, suspended state of shock precedes grief.”
