Each story, good and bad, short or long-from that trip to the mall when you saw Santa, to a long, bad illness-they are all a line or a paragraph in our own life manuscript. Two thirds of the way through, even, and it all won't necessarily make sense, but at the end there'll be a beautiful whole, where every sentence of every chapter fits.

Fate is a shape-shifter. It is the kindest and most generous entity imaginable, laying out more goodness than a person deserves, and then it shrinks and curls and forms into something grotesque. You think something is one thing, but then it´s another.

But what I wanted back had never really been there. He was a temporary illusion, a mirage of water after walking in the desert. I had made him up. And he could have killed me. You've got to stop the ride sometimes. Stop it and get off.

I thought I might cry, the way you do when someone gives you some kindness when you most need it but when it seems the most surprising thing.

I could forget that part, but it had to have been true.

I began to learn the importance of lifting things up and looking underneath.

Control was just wishful thinking, and you controlled things to hedge your bets, to be safe, to guard against loss.