No one on the street thought anything of the downtown girl dressed in black who had paused in the middle of midtown foot traffic. In her art student camouflage she could walk the entire length of Manhattan and, if not blend in, be classified and therefore ignored.

Hey, Ocean Eyes,” my father said. “Where’d you go on us?

Out loud I said I had two children. Silently I said three. I always felt like apologizing to her for that.

I watched my beautiful sister running . . . and I knew she was not running away from me or toward me. Like someone who has survived a gut-shot, the wound had been closing, closing - braiding into a scar for eight long years.

but, he also said it because part of him wanted more of her, this cold woman who was not exactly cold, this rock who was not stone.

The alcohol had the effect of making the black cloth blacker. This amused her; she had noted in her journal: "booze affects material as it does people.

The shadow of years was not as big on his small body. He knew I was away . But when people left they always came back.