“leaving.
So you leave, and there is an urge to look back, to look back just once as the sunset fades,
to see that severe New England skyline one final time — the spires, the Standpipe, Paul with
his axe slung over his shoulder. But maybe it's not such a good idea to look back. All the
stories say so — look what happened to Lot's wife. Best not to look back. Best to believe there
will be happily ever afters all the way around — and so there may be; who is to say there will
not be such endings? Not all boats which sail away into darkness never find the sun again, or
the hand of another child; if life teaches anything at all, it teaches that there are so many
happy endings that the man who believes there is no God needs his rationality called into
serious question.”