“She let go and yet for the first time did not feel she was giving up.”

“She looked up and saw the right angles of time above her as the clock hit three.”

“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.”

“Speed did not feel exhilarating or thrilling anymore. It only felt like a rapid approach toward something distant that she couldn’t make out through the dirty windshield.”

“She inhaled deep breaths filled with salty air and watched the moon cast streaks across the rippling river, unable to determine in which direction it flowed or where it went, but suddenly curious about it for the first time.”

“She did not know why the heat felt so heavy in that house, why all of a sudden it felt so much less like warmth than she remembered.”

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