He pointed toward the constellation. He did indeed know things. ...But it was hard for me to take it all in. The night was too crowded with joy. And … - Andrea Lewis

Yes, it’s hard to explain... It sets you apart, and people think you’re nuts. ...[N]obody else saw omens, auras, colors. I once cried over a sheep dog—a day before he died—and then was cursed as if I caused it. After that I kept quiet. I pretty much kept quiet for fifty years once I realized nobody cared... Even a tumbleweed trapped under barbed wire has purpose. ...I never denied the gift, if that’s what it was, but it came with loneliness.

I loved these compliments, which he lobbed at me like popcorn at a pigeon. I felt silly for craving his attention and powerful because he had noticed me. I bounced between those extremes, every other heartbeat, laying down hope one stratum at a time. The fact that he was all wrong––married, my boss, a flirt––gave me a perverse desire to make it right.

The damp packed earth beneath the magnolias was our playground, but even when I was small I watched the middle distance, as if my destiny might arise from the grooved line where the mangroves met the sky. Sometimes a pelican would appear out of the haze, six horizontal feet of pterodactyl in an effortless glissade, cruising just above the treetops, riding down the long, drawn-out minutes of the morning.