By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The younger sister hears mist creaking, while the older feels her child's heart and has had enough. Their ages are fourteen and seventeen.
The older sister's sense of oldness contrasts with her stated age. The page ends at her limit without describing what she does next.
The younger sister 'didn't hear anything but mist / creaking', while the older 'felt the child's heart, but her / oldness next to throb filled her eyes with glaze.' The page gives their ages, 'Fourteen the younger' and 'Seventeen the older', and ends 'And she had had enough.'
This continues the bridge scene, setting the baby's heartbeat against the older sister's exhaustion. Naming the ages late sharpens the strangeness of 'oldness' in a seventeen-year-old.