Brite-The Crow_ The Lazarus Heart-HarperEntertainment (1999) sixAfter Jared and the bird have left her alone in the apartment, Lucrece sits at the window and watches the rain filling the gutters on Ursulines. She knows that she should be moving, should be asking the questions that Jared's impatience and rage have kept him from considering, not sitting on her ass while what little is left of her world careens toward fresh disaster. But she feels too stunned, entirely too overwhelmed.There's a limit, she thinks. Even for me, there must be a limit.Since Benny's death her life has become a downward spiral toward a despair so complete and crushing that it could be the lightless bottom of the ocean, that absolute pressure on every inch of her body and mind and soul. She wasn't even given a chance to grieve for the loss of her twin, her bright shadow, before she had to begin fighting to save Jared's life and was thrown into the merciless arena of lawyers and police and courtrooms. And the press too, because it was just too good a story not to smear across every paper and tabloid and television news broadcast: the transsexual sister pleading for the life of the accused homosexual murderer of her cross-dressing twin.When the police were finally finished with Jared and Benny's apartment, she was the one who scrubbed her brother's blood from the floorboards and windows, the one who dragged the gore-crusted mattress away and painted the walls that could never be cleansed of their stains.
