"I had walked it. Twice. The second time in rain that turned the dust to glue. My boots never recovered."
"It showed," Ray said. "In the writing, I mean. The mud was in the sentences."
Something warm moved under her ribs that had nothing to do with the tea. Praise from strangers usually slid off her like meltwater; praise from a man who lived inside the landscapes she only visited landed differently, with weight, with the possibility of being believed. She looked at the photograph on the mantel again, longer this time, allowing herself the curiosity she had tried to swallow.