"With one hand?" Alley asked, lifting the bag of soil again, this time to start filling another pot. "I don't know if the work we did on it would make it easier, or if it being by itself would make it harder. You remember how long it took to make that little statuette, and I still wasn't happy with it."

That memory was a sour one now, too, knowing what she did now about the recipient of that statuette. How hadn't she seen it? She'd been so close to seeing it... how foolish she must have seemed to him, skating so close to the truth. So blind.