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10 November 2025 Book Releases to Preorder Today

And so he didn't--bring up what they both knew, that Sierra's days at home were numbered.  Soon, neither of them knew when, she would come up with a goal for herself and be gone.  Yet despite the dread he felt, or maybe because of it, Ryan saw the force that was going to carry her away as external.  He and Sierra were like two golden leaves lying under a tree, knowing there was a big wind on its way.  The Ryan leaf would be tossed up in the air, flipped over once or twice, and then deposited in the exact same place, while the Sierra leaf would be blown out of sight.

but then she glanced my way, and all at once it occurred to me:  if we moved we would no longer have space constraints to explain our not having a TV.  We would no longer have space constraints to keep us from buying bags upon bags of groceries at a time, inevitably resulting in waste.  We would no longer have space constraints to keep us from accumulating toys and games and puzzles at the high-speed rate of most parents we knew, who didn't seem to notice that the more their kids had, the more they wanted.  We would no longer have space constraints to help us live the way we wanted to live.

I remembered a moment from my early childhood.  Or rather, I remembered my memory of the moment, because after so long that's what memory is:  the replaying of filmstrip that's slightly warped from having gone through the projector so many times.  I'll never know what actually happened and what distortions I added.

We'd stand close together under the thick stars and listen to the waves pounding the rocks.  This was the Pacific as wild beast, and we loved it.  We loved the harsh air and the glints of moonlight far out on the water.  If we weren't too cold or tired, we would hike to the piece of driftwood someone had set like a bench overlooking the scrap of beach where we would have our salty lunches the next day. 'We're back!' we would yell at the ocean.  'We're back!'