“Many people, for many reasons, feel rootless - but orphans and abandoned or abused children have particular cause.”

“I often work and write in coffee shops, observing the baristas and eavesdropping on interesting conversations.”

“For a few years, skeins of yarn piled up in baskets around the house. There weren't enough humans in my mother's orbit to wear all the scarves and sweaters and hats she knitted. And then, as suddenly as she started, she lost interest, leaving needles still entwined in half-finished fragments.”

“I was stunned to learn that more than 200,000 abandoned, neglected, or orphaned children had been sent from the East Coast to the Midwest on trains between 1854 and 1929.”