Food is the rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure.

School is about two parts ABCs to fifty parts Where Do I Stand in the Great Pecking Order of Humankind.

I don't *ever* write about real people. Art is supposed to be better than that. If you want a slice of life, look out the window.

Most of the girls my age, or even younger, have babies. They appear way too young to be married, till you look in their eyes. Then you'll see it. Their eyes look happy and sad at the same time, but unexcited by anything, shifting easily off to the side as if they've already seen most of what there is. Married eyes.

But we've all ended up giving body and soul to Africa, one way or another. Even Adah, who's becoming an expert in tropical epidemiology and strange new viruses. Each of us got our heart buried in six feet of African dirt; we are all co-conspirators here. I mean, all of us, not just my family. So what do you do now? You get to find your own way to dig out a heart and shake it off and hold it up to the light again.

For if there is any single thing that everyone hopes for most dearly, it must be this: that the youngest outlive the oldest.

It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.