I wouldn't know where to start." "He who chooses the beginning of the road chooses the place it leads to." "Thoreau?" "Harry Emerson Fosdick.

I love her beyond the universe and back. I love her from this world to the next.

Lena's hair was sticking out in about fifteen directions, and her eyes were all small and puffy from crying. So this was what girls looked like in the morning. I had never seen one, not up close.

My mom was there, in some form, in some sense, in some universe. My mom was still my mom, even if she only lived in books and door locks and the smell of fried tomatoes and old paper. She lived.

I only assumed those dresses were costumes, based on the garish nature of the plumage.

I grabbed Aunt Prue's tiny hand, her fingers as small as bare twigs in winter. I closed my eyes and took her other hand, twisting my strong fingers together with her frail ones. I rested my forehead against our hands and closed my eyes. I imagined lifting my head up and seeing her smiling, the tape and tubes gone. I wondered if wishing was the same thing as praying. If hoping for something badly enough could make it happen.

I'd ridden to school with Link every day since kindergarten, when we became best friends after he gave me half his Twinkie on the bus. I only found out later it had fallen on the floor.