“Exactly one month after he was convicted, when the lights were dimmed and the detention officers made a final sweep of the catwalk, Peter reached down and tugged off his right sock. He turned on his side in the lower bunk, so that he was facing the wall. He fed the sock into his mouth, stuffing it as far back as it would go.When it got hard to breathe, he fell into a dream. He was still eighteen, but it was the first day of kindergarten. He was carrying his backpack and his Superman lunch box. The orange school bus pulled up and, with a sigh, split open its gaping jaws. Peter climbed the steps and faced the back of the bus, but this time, he was the only student on it. He walked down the aisle to the very end, near the emergency exit. He put his lunch box down beside him and glanced out the rear window. It was so bright he thought the sun itself must be chasing them down the highway.'Almost there,' a voice said, and Peter turned around to look at the driver. But just as there had been no passengers, there was no one at the wheel.Here was the amazing thing: in his dream, Peter wasn't scared. He knew, somehow, that he was headed exactly where he'd wanted to go.”

“What’s your name again?”“Peter. Peter Granford.”Lewis opened up his mouth to speak, but then just shook his head.“What?” The boy ducked his head. “You just, uh, looked like you were going to say somethingimportant.”Lewis looked at this namesake, at the way he stood with his shoulders rounded, as if he did notdeserve so much space in this world. He felt that familiar pain that fell like a hammer on hisbreastbone whenever he thought of Peter, of a life that would be lost to prison. He wished he’dtaken more time to look at Peter when Peter was right in front of his eyes, because now he would beforced to compensate with imperfect memories or-even worse-to find his son in the faces ofstrangers.Lewis reached deep inside and unraveled the smile that he saved for moments like this, when therewas absolutely nothing to be happy about. “It was important,” he said. “You remind me of someoneI used to know.”

“She stared at Peter, and she realized that in that one moment, when she hadn't been thinking, she knew exactly what he'd felt as he moved through the school with his backpack and his guns. Every kid in this school played a role: jock, brain, beauty, freak. All Peter had done was what they all secretly dreamed of: be someone, even for just nineteen minutes, who nobody else was allowed to judge.”

“Peter curled his hands into fists at his sides. 'Kiss me,' he said.She leaned towards him slowly, until her face was too close to be in focus. Her hair fell over Peter's shoulder like a curtain and her eyes closed. She smelled like autumn-like apple cider and slanting sun and the snap of the coming cold. He felt his heart scrambling, caught inside the confines of his own body.Josie's lips landed just on the edge of his, almost his cheek and not quite his mouth. 'I'm glad I wasn't stuck in here alone,' she said shyly, and he tasted the words, sweet as mint on her breath.”

“Peter took a shuddering breath. He wondered what his fish had thought, expecting the cool blue of the sea, only to wind up swimming in shit.”

“I know every line of his face. The one that was carved the first year of our marriage, by laughing so often. The one that was born of worries the year he left the contracting companies to go into business for himself. The one developed from focusing hard on Nathaniel as he took his first steps, said his first words.”

“When the railroad trains moaned, and river-winds blew, bringing echoes through the vale, it was as if a wild hum of voices, the dear voices of everybody he had known, were crying: "Peter, Peter! Where are you going, Peter?" And a big soft gust of rain came down. He put up the collar of his jacket, and bowed his head, and hurried along.”