All that was left for me was a terrible kind of paralysis, this waiting game, this heartbreak game.

Don't tell readers what to think. Let the action speak for itself.

But in the end, fighting for a love that was already gone felt like trying to live in the ruins of a lost city.

Sometimes I wish we could rub out all of our mistakes and start fresh, from the beginning,' I said. 'And sometimes I think there isn't anything to us but our mistakes.

Ernest once told me that the word paradise was a Persian words that meant walled garden. I knew then that he understood how necessary the promises we made to each other were to our happiness. You couldn't have real freedom unless you knew were the walls were and tended to them. We could lean on the walls because they existed; they existed because we leaned on them.

On December 8, 1921, when the Leopoldina set sail for Europe, we were on board. Our life together had finally begun. We held on to each other and looked out at the sea. It was impossibly large and full of beauty and danger in equal parts-and we wanted it all.

Knowing he was suffering pained me. That’s the way love tangles you up. I couldn’t stop loving him, and couldn’t shut off the feelings of wanting to care for him— but I also didn’t have to run to answer his letters. I was hurting, too, and no one was running to me.