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"She knows all about me, and then some," I said "She probably knohat I had for lunch"

"You’re in Grace," he said

"Well, I was embarrassed because I couldn’t remember her She wasn’t very helpful She just stood there waiting for me to rack ht off the bat"

Doc Hoht off the bat" He switched off the red light before opening the darkrooh a moment of absolute darkness He knew, but refused to accept, that I was afraid of the dark The click and blackness plunged ly, he touched ertips

"You’re in Grace," he said again, as if nothing had happened "There is only one of you for all these people to be watching for And so many of thehtht where sleep pulls on youruard the dreaht It wasn’t a co freeze fra, and then I a on a badly rutted gravel road to get to a beach on the south of the island A truck loaded with blood oranges kicked up a rock that broke the windshield in front of lass and spun out a spiderweb of cracks, but I spent the rest of the day inAny explanation I could think of sounded like superstition My dreaht to it, such prescience, it felt like so that was someday bound to happen

The inso probleine I worked around it I read a lot Inwhile my classmates were in the throes of rapid eyehabits to be a kind of secret advantage I had over other people I had the extra hours infor

Eht before school started, she brought me warm milk

"Don’t worry about it," I said She’d also brought out a blue embroidered tablecloth, which she shook out like a little sail and spread efficiently over my table She felt the place needed ot to have your sleep They had a special on Nova about it This ht months Before he died he went crazy He’d salute the doctors like he was in the army"

"Em, I’ll live That’s too pretty, that tablecloth Don’t you need that?"

"Are you kidding? Since Gra borders on the dish rags What happens if you just lie in bed and count backward from ninety-nine? That’s what I tell the boys to do when they can’t settle down"

"Insomnia’s different," I said It was hard to explain this to people "You know the light that coine it stays on all the time, even after you close the door That’s what it’s like in ht stays on"

E-roouy that lived at Walden Pond Relish? He only had two chairs We need to get you some more stuff in here"

I was surprised that Henry Thoreau entered into Eo over to your house," I pointed out

"That’s the God’s truth I’ot into it, oh boy, she says he’s impudent That’s her all-tiets mad at soh, so we’ll never get him to stop now"

I drank theI wondered if I’d had this in the back of my mind when I moved in here

Emelina scrutinized my clean, white walls "Codi, I hope you’ll take this the right way, but I don’t see how you can live in a place and have it feel like nobody lives there"

"I have things in here My clothes, look in the closet And books Some of those books are very personal" This was true Besides s Hallie had sent me over the years, and an old voluift from Doc Homer