She’s at a threshold—hovering, diaphanous, all the selves she has ever been. In the playhouse there is a small child, smaller than Waldo. A teenage girl walks down a city street. A young woman falls in love. A wife becomes a mother. A bright, loving presence. The whole crowd encircles them. It isn’t scary. It isn’t anything at all. Maybe every person has an uncrushable heart a hundred billion times stronger than steel. He watches the dance of light and shadow on the walls. Someday, this will be helpful to him.
