Distance and time and a whitewashed mind hadn’t kept a child from growing, from existing, from demanding a place on this earth.

Her immediate impulse was one of self-preservation. She was tied up in this somehow, she didn’t know why or how, but there was something waiting for her on the other side of this crowd.

No one is on this road, she thought. No one but us. Everyone knows this isn’t the place to be at three o’clock on a summer afternoon. Everyone but us.

The reality and what it meant was slowly dawning: the betrayal, deception, and omission. Clandestine meetings. Evasion under questioning. In hindsight, Dana and Evan picked out the clues they’d missed, reevaluated the moments they’d been...

Rage and despair shook her for minutes or hours. She was unaware of the passage of time. Finally spent, she retreated inward and collapsed onto the floor in a fetal position, the letter in shreds...