I watch the ashes swim around like dandelion puffs, making swirls where bodies and walls once stood.

So how long do you think it’ll be?” he says. “Before the next hurricane comes along to take you home.” “Can I tell you my biggest fear?” I say. “Yes. Tell me.” “That it will be a very windless four years.

And if I have to die trying, I will get out of here.

He looks at me, and I don't know what he sees. I used to think it was Rose. But she's not here with us now, in this room. It's just him and me, and the books. I feel like our lives are in those books. I feel like all the words on the pages are for us.

Eventually I realize that I am holding on to him just as tightly as he holds on to me. And here we are: two small dying things, as the world ends around us like falling autumn leaves.

It isn’t a perfect place. There are no perfect places. But nobody cares about perfection when there are sand castles to build and kites to chase, children that are being born, old hearts that are giving in.

She would do anything, anything to belong to his son after a lifetime of belonging to no one at all.