Norah looked at her son’s tiny face, surprised, as always, by his name. he had not grown into it yet, he still wore it like a wrist band, something that might easily slip off and disappear. She had read about people – where? she could not remember this either – who refused to name their children for several weeks, feeling them to be not yet of the earth, suspended still between two worlds.

I love to swim, and I love being near water.

...bleak territory of the heart.

Writing is always a process of discovery—I never know the end, or even the events on the next page, until they happen. There’s a constant interplay between the imagining and shaping of the story.

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

No one could suspect the intricate mysteries of her heart.

Away from the bright motion of the party, she carried her sadness like a dark stone clenched in her palm.