“It wasn't that I forgot Hanna. But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station. It's there, somewhere behind you, and you could go back and make sure of it. But why should you?”

“Why do some memories bleed out of nowhere and others stay locked behind doors?”

“I wasn't sure I was ready to go home. I believed that this city was magical. That it sang to me. And it seemed to me that once you happened upon magical places you should stay there, happily ever after.”

“She just got out of the hospital. Why don't you go gossip behind her back, like decent people?”

“Patricia embraces me on the station platform. 'The past is what you leave behind in life, Ruby,' she says with the smile of a reincarnated lama. 'Nonsense, Patricia,' I tell her as I climb on board my train. 'The past's what you take with you.”

“Like you're riding a train at night across some vast plain, and youcatch a glimpse of a tiny light in a window of a farmhouse. In aninstant it's sucked back into the darkness behind and vanishes. Butif you close your eyes, that point of light stays with you, justbarely for a few moments.”