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Every morning she got up at five. She went to the diner and got ready for the breakfast rush. It was over by eight thirty, and then they would have a long cigarette break and get ready for the lunch rush at eleven thirty. They were busy, which made the time pass quickly. At two she would be exhaust…

She sat for a while on a rock at the edge of the road. She stopped crying. Then she thought: It never happened. She would never speak of it, or let herself think of it, ever. She was quite certain that you could change your past, change the facts, by will alone. Only memory makes it real. So elimin…

It was okay, really, because Josh was her age and that was the way it should be. And Josh was smarter than he thought. Any nagging feelings of doubt, any issues he had with Josh’s character or intentions were not based on anything articulable or objective. He knew his bad feelings came from a littl…

He didn’t want to protect her, or her to restore his youth. Nothing like that. He didn’t exactly know what he wanted. Yes he did—he wanted to be close to her, closer than anyone else. She was awkward and impatient. Too sensitive. She wore the wrong, unflattering clothes, had yet to inhabit herself …

“I’m turning fifty, and it is just now dawning on me that I have limited time,” Nash said. “No kidding. I always felt my life was circumscribed, but I believed it was because of me, because of the choices I made. Now I realize—and only now, I am ashamed to say—that my life is circumscribed by defin…