June 1941
“Get up,” I whisper, crouching on the concrete, grasping the bars with fingers picked raw and bloody. I consider rapping the bars with the key — the precious key!— but I don’t dare. The guard might be a light sleeper.

September 1933
“Ollie, have you seen what their car spits out into the air?” Gertie asked, hands on her hips. “The smoke, Ollie! Every time that damn Model T cranks up it sends columns of smoke up just like Fourth of July fireworks. Every day, Ollie, every day. How can that possibly not be dangerous?”
Ollie sighed and took Gertie’s hands. “It’s not good for us, Gertie, I know it’s not. And you know it’s not. But nobody else sees it.”

When the cold, white morning of her fiftieth birthday arrived, Beatrice couldn’t lift her head. The chimes of her good morning, programmed into the phone she kept beside her, just in case, circled through their simple melody three times and then stopped. From outside her bedroom door came the cries of the cat, hungry again, its staccato screeches demanding attention. Sunlight fell like shards of glass on the floor, too bright this April morning, reflecting the snow that should not have fallen, here, in Atlanta, where last week was springtime.