Sitting at table, chewing on his after-supper broom straw, Paul D decided to place her. Consult with
the Negroes in town and find her her own place.
No sooner did he have the thought than Beloved strangled on one of the raisins she had picked out of
the bread pudding. She fell backward and off the chair and thrashed around holding her throat. Sethe
knocked her on the back while Denver pried her hands away from her neck. Beloved, on her hands and
knees, vomited up her food and struggled for breath.
When she was quiet and Denver had wiped up the mess, she said, "Go to sleep now."
"Come in my room," said Denver. "I can watch out for you up there."
No moment could have been better. Denver had worried herself sick trying to think of a way to get
Beloved to share her room. It was hard sleeping above her, wondering if she was going to be sick again,
fall asleep and not wake, or (God, please don't) get up and wander out of the yard just the way she
wandered in. They could have their talks easier there: at night when Sethe and Paul D were asleep; or in
the daytime before either came home. Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and
misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be.
When the girls left, Sethe began to clear the table. She stacked the plates near a basin of water.
"What is it about her vex you so?"
Paul D frowned, but said nothing.
"We had one good fight about Denver. Do we need one about her too?" asked Sethe.
"I just don't understand what the hold is. It's clear why she holds on to you, but I just can't see why
you holding on to her."
Sethe turned away from the plates toward him. "What you care who's holding on to who? Feeding her
is no trouble. I pick up a little extra from the restaurant is all. And she's nice girl company for Denver.
You know that and I know you know it, so what is it got your teeth on edge?"
"I can't place it. It's a feeling in me."
"Well, feel this, why don't you? Feel how it feels to have a bed to sleep in and somebody there not
worrying you to death about what you got to do each day to deserve it. Feel how that feels. And if that
don't get it, feel how it feels to be a coloredwoman roaming the roads with anything God made liable to
jump on you. Feel that."
"I know every bit of that, Sethe. I wasn't born yesterday and I never mistreated a woman in my life."
"That makes one in the world," Sethe answered.
"Not two?"
"No. Not two."
"What Halle ever do to you? Halle stood by you. He never left you."
"What'd he leave then if not me?"
"I don't know, but it wasn't you. That's a fact."
"Then he did worse; he left his children."
