Salt to the Sea

by Ruta Sepetys

I quickly realized that what pleased my father the most was my happiness. So I learned to appear happy, even if I wasn’t.

‘I wept because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.’”

“Just when you think this war has taken everything you loved, you meet someone and realize that somehow you still have more to give.”

Next to me in the water, a young woman floated silently in a life vest. Her skirt rose up in a perfect circle around her. She turned in slow pirouette, dead arms outstretched, snow dusting her dark hair like powdered sugar.

“Will anyone come for us?” repeated Joana. “Yes,” I lied. “Someone will come for us.”