“By December 1975, a year had passed since Mr. Harvey had packed his bags, but there was still no sign of him. For a while, until the tape dirtied or the paper tore, store owners kept a scratchy sketch of him taped to their windows. Lindsey and Samuel walked in the neighboorhood or hung out at Hal's bike shop. She wouldn't go to the diner where the other kids went. The owner of the diner was a law and order man. He had blown up the sketch of George Harvey to twice its size and taped it to the front door. He willingly gave the grisly details to any customer who asked- young girl, cornfield, found only an elbow.Finallly Lindsey asked Hal to give her a ride to the police station. She wanted to know what exactly they were doing.They bid farewell to Samuel at the bike shop and Hal gave Lindsey a ride through a wet December snow.From the start, Lindsey's youth and purpose had caught the police off guard. As more and more of them realized who she was, they gave her a wider and wider berth. Here was this girl, focused, mad, fifteen...When Lindsey and Hal waited outside the captain's office on a wooden bench, she thought she saw something across the room that she recognized. It was on Detective Fenerman's desk and it stood out in the room because of its color. What her mother had always distinguished as Chinese red, a harsher red than rose red, it was the red of classic red lipsticks, rarely found in nature. Our mother was proud of her ability fo wear Chinese red, noting each time she tied a particular scarf around her neck that it was a color even Grandma Lynn dared not wear. Hal,' she said, every muscle tense as she stared at the increasingly familiar object on Fenerman's desk. Yes.'Do you see that red cloth?'Yes.'Can you go and get it for me?'When Hal looked at her, she said: 'I think it's my mother's.'As Hal stood to retrieve it, Len entered the squad room from behind where Lindsey sat. He tapped her on the shoulder just as he realized what Hal was doing. Lindsey and Detective Ferman stared at each other.Why do you have my mother's scarf?'He stumbled. 'She might have left it in my car one day.'Lindsey stood and faced him. She was clear-eyed and driving fast towards the worst news yet. 'What was she doing in your car?'Hello, Hal,' Len said.Hal held the scarf in his head. Lindsey grabbed it away, her voice growing angry. 'Why do you have m mother's scarf?'And though Len was the detective, Hal saw it first- it arched over her like a rainbow- Prismacolor understanding. The way it happened in algebra class or English when my sister was the first person to figure out the sum of x or point out the double entendres to her peers. Hal put his hand on Lindsey's shoulder to guide her. 'We should go,' he said.And later she cried out her disbelief to Samuel in the backroom of the bike shop.”

“My mother gave Lindsey a meaningful look. 'We are not discussing this further. You can go up to your room and wait or wait with me. Your choice.'Lindsey was dumbfounded. She stared at our mother and knew what she wanted most: to flee, to run out into the cornfield where my father was, where I was, where she felt suddenly that the heart of her family had moved. But Buckley wtood warm against her.~pg 143; Lindsey, Buckley and Mom”

“For just a moment, I thought about it. I pictured how it would be, dusting off the rusty Romance Lindsey, long hidden in some box in the back closet of my mind, under piles of more important boxes filled with Work Lindsey, and Mommy Lindsey, Divorce Court Lindsey, and now Shared Custody Lindsey, and Depressed Insane Lindsey.Was Romance Lindsey even there anymore? Probably not. She had sat forgotten for so long that, like the Skin Horse and the Velveteen Rabbit, she had ceased to be real. I never even thought about her anymore. Until now. Which was a bad sign that the boxes were getting jumbled up and Control Freak Lindsey needed to get to work.....He grinned wickedly, and my stomach fluttered like a firecracker the instant the chain reaction starts inside the casing. Romance Lindsey and Tomboy Lindsey grabbed Mommy Lindsey, shoved her into a box, and sat down on the lid. Control Freak Lindsey ran away screaming.”

“We argued most of the way home. I thought it would be nicest for Hal to take his two dollars in to Mother first, bu Muriel didn't think so. She always wanted to do things as if it were a play. "That wouldn't be any good," she said. "If Hal goes in first and gives her the money, she'll start crying right away. But if you give her yours first, she'll just say we were smart children to make so much money. And then I'll give her mine, and she'll say, 'Why, why... where in the world did you get so much money?' And then Phillip can give her his, and she'll look like she thought maybe we'd robbed a bank. And then when Hal gives her his, we'll all want to cry."It worked just the way she thought it would.”

“Where do humans meet for normal dates?’ How the hell would she know? Except then she remembered Mary saying something about a colleague of hers meeting a man…What was the name of the place? ‘TGI Friday’s.’ she said. 'There’s one in Lucas Square.' 'Fine. Tell her eight o’clock tonight.' 'What name do I give her?' 'Tell her it’s…Hal. Hal E. Wood.”

“Ruth hadn't talked to my sister since before my death,and then it was only to excuse herself in the hallway atschool. But she'd seen Lindsey walking home with Samuel andseen her smile with him. She watched as my sister said yesto pancakes and no to everything else. She had tried toimagine herself being my sister as she had spent timeimagining being me.”