But I'd do it again. I know that now. I'd make that promise a thousand times over and lose her a thousand times over to have heard her play last night or to see her in the morning sunlight. Or even without that. Just to know that she's somewhere out there. Alive.

It's a good thing Kerry's dead, because that funeral would've sent him over the edge," Henry said.

She said if she couldn't play, she had nothing left. What about me?

Travelling is like a talent, like whistling or dancing. And some people have it.

Standing here, in this quiet house where I can hear the birds chirping out back, I think I’m kind of getting the concept of closure. It’s no big dramatic before-after. It’s more like that melancholy feeling you get at the end of a really good vacation. Something special is ending, and you’re sad, but you can’t be that sad because, hey, it was good while it lasted, and there’ll be other vacations, other good times.

And the voice grows stronger and stronger, and it’s my voice this time and it’s asking a question: How does she know?

I don’t want to be that person, who just takes things.