The city of Pittsburgh gleaming suddenly before her . . . so startling in its vastness and its beauty that she had gasped and slowed, afraid of losing control of the car

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.

It seemed there was no end at all to the lies a person could tell, once she got started.

Grief, it seemed, was a physical place.

In some deep place in her heart, Caroline had kept alive the silly romantic notion that somehow David Henry had once known her as no one else ever could. But it was not true. He had never even glimpsed her.

Twin threads ran through her: fear and excitement.

Once, this whole world had been hidden beneath a shallow sea.