“His words were rare, full conversations with him even rarer, as if Parker were one of his students that he did not want to indulge with conversation after class.”

“Parker fixated on the envelope's precise penmanship as she lifted it. Her grandmother rarely took the time to write her own name in the return address, let alone give it the aesthetic attention that this one so seemed to demand. Once, when Parker questioned her on this, her grandmother casually asserted that she "didn't quite believe in envelopes" as if this were a debatable concept like Socialism or wearing white after Labor Day.”

“Parker soon became familiar with the one certainty of sorrow, that ultimately loneliness trumps logic.”

“She kept public radio on so it sounded like someone was sitting next to her, engaging her in intriguing conversation.”

“Parker stared at the bare branches along Saint Marks Place as they swayed with the wind, reaching for one another, and longed for the warmth of a million little leaves and their multicolored smiles.”

“A girl?" Her mother looked at her, curiously, as if the word were unknown to her; ancient and puzzling as an artifact behind a glass encasement.”

“Parker let the letter drop to the floor, an act she often criticized in movies for its melodrama.”