“Paul, careening down the slide with his arms out flung, and Phoebe, present somehow through her absence.”

“Her voice, high and clear, moved through the leaves, through the sunlight. It splashed onto the gravel, the grass. He imagined the notes falling into the air like stones into water, rippling the invisible surface of the world. Waves of sound, waves of light: his father had tried to pin everything down, but the world was fluid and could not be contained.”

“This is what he knew that Paul didn't: the world was precarious and sometimes cruel. He'd had to fight hard to achieve what Paul simply took for granted.”

“In some deep place in her heart, Caroline had kept alive the silly romantic notion that somehow David Henry had once known her as no one else ever could. But it was not true. He had never even glimpsed her.”

“A fear Paul had transformed all these years, like a gifted alchemist, into anger and rebellion.”

“Twin threads ran through her: fear and excitement.”

“They turned a distracted gaze on the world, wide-eyed, somehow, and questioning.”