New York appeared like a cough of blood. The sun was going down behind the warehouses and tall buildings. She saw men on the wharfside in the ruin of themselves.

One of the things she noticed early on about the women of Belfast, even back during the war, was that they all carried a lace handkerchief in the sleeve of their dresses. An odd fashion statement if ever there was one. A glance at the wrist, a little time capsule of grief. She took to carrying one herself, but the fashion has waned now over the years. Less sleeve, more sorrow.

I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the large part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant.

Sometimes he would watch them as they talked, saying very little or nothing at all. Kites of language. Clouds of logic. Drifting in and out. Caught on the moving wave of their own voices.

They tried, he and his first wife, they hung on, they failed, what was broken was broken. Ashes do not become wood.