With Children The Clock Is Reset. We

And Yet He Had Loved Her. A Bookish Girl Heedless Of Her Beauty, Unconscious Of Her Effect. She'd Been Prepared To Live Her Life Alone But From The Moment He'd Known Her He'd Needed Her.

The Most Compelling Narrative, Expressed In Sentences With Which I Have No Chemical Reaction, Or An Adverse One, Leaves Me Cold.

The Sky Was Different, Without Color, Taut And Unforgiving. But The Water Was The Most Unforgiving Thing, Nearly Black At Times, Cold Enough, I Knew, To Kill Me, Violent Enough To Break Me Apart. The Waves Were Immense, Battering Rocky Beaches Without Sand. The Farther I Went, The More Desolate It Became, More Than Any Place I'd Been, But For This Very Reason The Landscape Drew Me, Claimed Me As Nothing Had In A Long Time.

Pet Names Are A Persistant Remnant Of Childhood, A Reminder That Life Is Not Always So Serious, So Formal, So Complicated. They Are A Reminder, Too, That One Is Not All Things To All People.

And Yet She Could Not Forgive Herself. Even As An Adult, She Wished Only That She Could Go Back And Change Things: The Ungainly Things She’d Worn, The Insecurity She’d Felt, All The Innocent Mistakes She Made.