Dietre felt a surge of relief when Francis accepted the gift. "The boy at the bookstore helped me pick it out; Ben, he was very nice...and patient." When D sat again, it was much closer to Francis than before, and he continued to ramble out of nervousness as well as drunkenness. "I chose this one because it has pictures of everything...Some of the others didn't have pictures, or they had pictures every few pages, or they had pictures of kitchen utensils arranged in still-lifes and things and I don't know how you are supposed to know what you want to cook without knowing what it looks like in the end, so... So I chose this one with the pictures..."
"You don't have to get me anything, but I had to get you something because I'm an inconvenience." Dietre felt he owed Francis for the trouble he caused him by being placed with him. It wasn't very fair for Francis' job to force the man to take people in and all that, even if Dietre really liked living there and secretly (maybe not so secretly) hoped he could stay for a long time.
The boy canted his head to the side when he was told he was like Christine. He didn't really see it. "I like Christine, she's like Gloriana." A thought came to him, and though he wasn't sure why, he felt compelled to ask a question.