Michael Malone - Weebly

ganged up on him; they were Catholic and Cecil
Hedgerow's mother was Jewish. His father had not
been Jewish, nor had he raised his son in that (or any)
religion. The Hedgerows' had been a love match—it
had also cost them their respective families' love.
Widowed, Miriam Hedgerow had remained alone in
Madder, where she opened a seamstress shop in her
living room and for twenty years took in and out the
clothes of Dingley Falls ladies as fashion or flesh
required.
She had also played the piano and worn small silver
earrings in pierced ears.
It was a special regret of Polly's that she had not
known her grandmother, who, after a long illness, had
died of cancer when her only grandchild was two.
Grandma Miriam was nevertheless very real to the girl.
She was a source of exotic beauty, folk wisdom,
inherited courage and artistry and liberal ideology, of
fascinating foreign ancestry on which Polly could draw
to define her own uniqueness.
Grandma Miriam stood for all those things that
separated Polly from the others and would lead her to a