Each spine was an encapsulated memory, each book represented hours, days of pleasure, of immersion into words.

We didn't think the library was funny looking in it's faux- Greek splendor, nor did we find the cuisine limited or bland, or the movies at the Michigan theater relentlessly American and mindless. These were opinions I came to later, after I became a denizen of a City, an expatriate anxious to distance herself from the bumpkin ways of her youth. I am suddenly consumed by nostalgia for the little girl who was me, who loved the fields and believed in God, who spent winter days home sick from school reading Nancy Drew and sucking menthol cough drops, who could keep a secret.

Clare, I want to tell you, again, I love you. Our love has been the thread through the labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust. Tonight I feel that my love for you has more density in this world than I do, myself: as though it could linger on after me and surround you, keep you, hold you.

Henry loves my hair almost as though it is a creature unto itself, as though it has a soul to call its own, as though it could love him back.

I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.

He thanked her and left the house in the mood of a shipwrecked man who has allowed the rescue ship to pass him by.

I love. I have loved. I will love.