When I look at him, I don't see the cowardly young man who sold me out to Jeanine Matthews, and i don't hear the excuses he gave afterward. When I look at him, I see the boy who held my hand in the hospital when our mother broke her wrist and told me it would be all right. I see the brother who told me to make my own choices, the night before the Choosing Ceremony. I think of all the remarkable things he is--smart and enthusiastic and observant, quiet and earnest and kind.

When i get home, I sit on the front step and take deep breaths of the cool spring air for a few minutes. My mother was the one who taught me to steal moments like those, moments of freedom, though she didn't now it. I watched her... But I learned something else from watching her too, which is that the free moments always have to end.

I note how calm she looks and how focused she is. She is well-practiced in the art of losing herself. I can't say the same of myself.

Writing means not just staring ugliness in the face, but finding a way to embrace it.

I am fed up. I am fed up with tears and weakness. But there isn't much I can do to stop them.

Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again.

Yes," I say. "Three of these flying birds." I touch my collarbone, marking the path of their flight - toward my heart. One for each member of the family I left behind.