They held me and told me everything would be fine, that sadness would rise from our bones and evaporate in sunlight the way morning fog burned off the river in summer. My mother rubbed the kites on my hands and arms and told me to think of my lungs as balloons. I just want to feel safe, I said.

Light Boxes: A Novel (ed. Penguin, 2010) - ISBN: 9781101429594