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Prologue

On le

cloud in the sky An uninterrupted sea of baby blue was spread from one horizon to the other, and the warentle as the flutter of air fro sparrow

It was ic

Twilight the day before I had pushed Mommy in her wheelchair down the ramp and turned her toward the lake

"There's one!" Moht of the first blackbird lifting fro over the water

Then, as we often did, we held hands and closed our eves and made our wishes It was our special little secret cereether since I was four because it was so she said she had always done She believed in the power of the lake and its surroundings

"I started doing it alrandmother Hudson," she told me "Before that the only body of water I had really spent any time near as in my bathtub A place like this was perfect for my dreams and still is I knoill be perfect for yours as well Summer"

We both had wished for a wonderful toined a day when s so deeply in the faces of all et every sad or troubling thought, every unhappyin ic here and there to protect us, especially us

I didn't disagree, for noell past the age when I wouldn't be peredies and the mistakes that marked our family history Mommy confessed that

sometimes-- perhaps even more often than

so her every step, her every breath Even her every thought