“She suddenly realized how much she loved the rain; loved the way it seemed like the sky was purging something it held onto; the feeling of relief that settled over the earth the moment it passed. As if the universe, and all its tiny pieces, took one collective sigh and moved on to the next thing.”

“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.”

“She sat on the stoop alone, gazing up at an infinite sky as it held her and pushed her away all at once.”

“What a world, she thought, where you could at one moment be under a cloud and the next, right in the heart of it; and then, in another moment, soaring high above them all.”

“Love was something that sat comfortably in her dreams, so she never fully expected it to materialize.”

“Parker, I'm old," She said matter-of-factly. "I get away with these things." She continued to wave and smile wildly. "People treat me like an idiot so I'm allowed to act like one from time to time. It's one of the perks.”

“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.”