"We were teaching the sons and daughters of moguls and scions and diplomats and celebrities and politicians and did you see who just walked out of their parent-teacher conference? I love that show he’s on. Yeah, he’s alright, but his daughter is a mess. I’m glad she’s not in my class..."

"I know now that my real life started long before any one particular job.”

“Whatever it was the God of War wanted of our fire that night we weren’t sure we wanted to know.”

"I reflected that I was a product of accident and dedication, a strange potion of unplanned and to-die-for."

"It was the place where I started figuring out that home doesn’t have to be permanent."

"Offshore of the town where we vacation on a barrier island in North Carolina, climate change piles five new inches of water onto the sea every ten years..."

"We teach the kids to edge around imagined rectangles, tell them: we don’t walk across graves."

"I awoke alone in the tiny house, our solar-powered houseboat at the Burlington Marina. You had slept in the hotel room we’d taken the night before to escape from our adventure on the water—the noise of the marina, the crowds on the docks, the general party atmosphere at Waterfront Park..."

"My mother and I shared July—the fireworks, the blistering heat, the ruby birthstone. But I’d learn to celebrate my birthday without her..."

"On June 4, 2015, I was sixteen and a half—almost, minus six days. I was probably working at the store that was attached to my dance studio..."