“Right back where you started, she told herself. Right back in the middle of that town. You were out, she told her heartburn. You. Were. Out. Her father once told her that when you leave a place, you should never go back, because no matter what the actual circumstances, it will always look like a retreat, a failure. That was sure how it felt.”

“He could feel her doing that list thing, where she didn’t speak or look at you because she was tallying something in her head. Figuring out how bad you’d messed up.”

“She deeply disliked being so fearful, but had actually grown rather comfortable over the years with disappointing herself. She used to try. Just leave the house by the front door once a day. Then, after a while, she’d try for once a week. Then once a month. Then, Why bother? she thought. Let the world come to me, and I’ll set out a little lunch. What she hated most was that she’d become one of them. Another Lichporter grown self-indulgent and eccentric, the subject of sidewalk gossip: Oh, her, Mrs. Bowe … yes, yes … so sad. She doesn’t leave the house, you know, unless there’s a you-know-what, not unless someone D-I-E-S.”

“Amos surely left it behind for a reason, and more and more Mrs. Bowe felt she was following a path trod out for her by another. For the time being, she was willing to play the part allotted to her. But she would keep an eye on the boy in her way.”

“She thought he cared too much. Sometimes Dolores could see that her son felt what other people were feeling. He was sympathetic, she knew that. But Silas managed to make his feelings about others into another kind of absence. You’d laugh, Silas would laugh. You’d cry, he’d start crying. It was like he was tuning in to a radio station. It took a moment for the distant signal to lock in, but once it did, he’d be right in sync with you. Only when he got angry, or hurt, did the signal fail and he’d become very present indeed, and very annoyed to have his calm broken. Then it was nothing but static.”

“You can never go back, really, there is only forward.”

“Sense is the song you sing out into the world, and the song the world sings back to you.”