William Kent Krueger

Except in spring, when it’s prone to flooding, they think of it as an old friend. On quiet nights when the moon is full or nearly so and the surface of the Alabaster is mirror-still and glows pure white in the dark bottomland, to stand on a hillside and look down at this river is to fall in love.

With people, we fall in love too easily, it seems, and too easily fall out of love.

Felix said he couldn’t stand to be in his house any longer, not with Hannah there, crying like that. Hannah was Felix’s wife. By then, she’d been dead a dozen years.

He was feeling a burning resentment because this was a place that had meant much to him, that was almost sacred in its way. On many occasions in his youth, this placid pool had offered him the beautiful nakedness of the only woman he’d ever loved. Now it felt to him desecrated, ruined by that damn Jimmy Quinn.

Every time I woke to a new day, I celebrated. That’s because I never expected to come back alive. Amazing how in the middle of hell something as simple as dawn can be the most beautiful thing imaginable.

He had a wealth of blessings, but I never once saw him celebrate his life. And now he’s lost his chance. Makes me think it’s time I started celebrating again before it’s too late.”