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.

Norah watched him, serious and utterly absorbed in his task, overcome by the simple fact of his existence.

I've been accused of trying too hard to rescue people

She saw herself moving through another life, an exotic, difficult, satisfying life.

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

Its impossible to control the reception of your work - the only thing you can control is the experience of writing itself, and the work you create.

He could hardly imagine anymore what his life would be without the weight of his hidden knowledge. He'd come to think of it as a kind of penance. It was self-destructive, he could see that, but that was the way things were. People smoked, they jumped out of airplanes, they drank too much and got into their cars and drove without seat belts.