I close my eyes. An image flashes—emerging from the van with Julian after our escape from New York City; believing, in that moment, that we had escaped the worst, that life would begin again for us. Instead life has only grown harder.

Why couldn't you let me have it? Why did you have to take it? Why did you always take everything?

I've been so used to thinking of what the borders are keeping out that I haven't considered that they're also penning us in.

And I guess that's when it starts to hit me: the whole point is, you do what you can.

There are some losses we never get over.

...into hate, into refusal, against hope and without fear

But...books are so much more. Some of them are webs; you can feel your way along their threads, but just barely, into strange and dark corners. Some of them are balloons bobbing up through the sky: totally self-contained, and unreachable, but beautiful to watch. And some of them―the best ones―are doors.