Though Lexington is not a small town, it sometimes feels like one, with circles of acquaintance overlapping once, then again; the person you meet by chance at the library or the pool may turn out to be the best friend of your down-the-street neighbor. Maybe thats why people are so friendly here, so willing to be unhurried.

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

But she had felt since childhod that her life would n ot be ordinary. A moment would come- she would know it when she saw it- and everything would change.

She had died at age twelve, and by now she was nothing but the memory of love-- nothing, now, but bones.

Grief, it seemed, was a physical place.

No one could suspect the intricate mysteries of her heart.

After all these years, I feel so free. Who knows where I might fly?