Things are NEVER what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was.

Turn away. From the darkness, the madness, the pain. Open your eyes and look at the light.

He pressed himself into me and kissed my neck, and it was as if everything strong and solid inside me, heart and bones and muscle and gut, softened and melted from the heat of him.

On those nights, the words were for me alone. They came up unbidden from my heart. They spilled over my tongue and spilled out my mouth. And because of them, I, who was nothing and nobody, was a prince of Denmark, a maid of Verona, a queen of Egypt. I was a sour misanthrope, a beetling hypocrite, a conjurer's daughter, a mad and murderous king.

I've always admired your rather formidable will, your refusal to back away from difficulties, but sometimes strength isn't about perseverance. Sometimes it's about knowing when to quit.

Namaste. It was a Nepalese greeting. It meant: The light within me bows to the light within you.

You are a ghost, Andi," she says. "Almost gone." I look at her. I want to say something but I can't get the words out. She squeezes my hands. "Come back to us," she says. And she's gone.