When the child separates from its parents to explore the new world, the parents can do one of two things. They can fight it with rules, pleading, tea… - Kathleen Winter

They can admit the new world exists, dangerous and irresistible. Cosy is not what awakening youth wants. Safety is not what it wants. The material world is not what it wants either.

A lot of things can go out of order in a lonely house over a lonely autumn and the start of winter, without other people in the village knowing, especially if that village prides itself on an independent spirit.

A peregrine falcon,” a passenger said, “lives at 2180 Yonge Street in Toronto, on the corner of Yonge and Eglinton. It sits high on the Canadian Tire building, hunts from there, brings prey, and in full view of everyone in the offices, tears it to pieces. Blood everywhere.

Wayne had never been able to love the dog Treadway brought home the day he dismantled the Ponte Vecchio. He wanted to love the dog but he couldn’t, and he blamed his father. “The dog deserved love.