“Out in the distance I could hear an animal wailing as though the air curled around the sound and flipped it around.”

“If a tree falls in the forest when no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?If I scream in the silence, will anyone be around to hear it?”

“Okay. I could her deb wailing-in my head. This is the Lowcountry, Steve. That's how life goes around here.”

“it is a heartBreaking sound, Amir Jan, the Wailing of a mother. I pray to Allah you Never hear it.”

“Just that one word—sound—sent a strong answering pulse through her body. His tongue curled around syllables that weren’t there, like a promise. This is what you’ll get, if you just let me hear.”

“All my life I've felt on the outside wherever I am - out of the picture, the conversation, at a distance, as though I were the only one able to hear the sounds or words that other's can't, and deaf to the words that they hear. As if I'm outside the frame, on the other side of a huge, invisible window.”