Either things grow and change or they die.

He had handed his daughter to Caroline Gill and that act had led him here, years later, to this girl in motion of her own, this girl who had decided yes, a brief moment of release in the back of a car, in the room of a silent house, this girl who had stood up later, adjusting her clothes, with now knowledge of how that moment was already shaping her life.

This is what he knew that Paul didn't: the world was precarious and sometimes cruel. He'd had to fight hard to achieve what Paul simply took for granted.

You missed a lot of heartache, sure. But David, you missed a lot of joy.

All that sunny afternoon, traveling north and east, Caroline believed absolutely in the future. And why not? For if the worst had already happened to them in the eyes of the world, then surely, surely, it was the worst that they left behind them now.

Lately, the world felt fragile, like a blown egg, as if it might shatter beneath a careless touch.

A fear Paul had transformed all these years, like a gifted alchemist, into anger and rebellion.