“She looked out the window at the soggy sidewalks on Saint Marks Place, as a late snowfall began to melt in the face of a much warmer early spring day.”

“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.”

“By midday, temperatures had not reached their typical highs for late spring, and passersby seemed to struggle with the desire to dress for summer despite the chill in the air.”

“She didn’t quite know how to translate faces; so she wondered about Jerry, but that’s all she could do.”

“The likeness she had been searching for was on her face the whole time.”

“This was the place where someone had led her, only she could not remember who and could not remember when. Just that this was where she was now.”

“Even with the windows up she could smell the thick, spiky aroma of cut grass and the distant hum of a lawnmower somewhere down the street. It was a sad hum, though, like the buzzing of a bee that had lost the desire to make honey.”