I told him he had said something so wise to me, something that shaped my thinking about the entire project: “If we could know the future our jobs would be a lot easier.” “That was probably something I said half asleep,” he told me, not acting embarrassed or falsely modest, but being scrupulously honest, the way he had been so careful as an intern. He doesn’t remember saying something that changed my life, but I do, and seeing him I felt the import of the entire shift again, for Mr. Hampton and for Sheila, for Candace, Dorothy, and Irving. I felt infinity in the palm of my hand and eternity
...more
