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After five years of work,
now that I’m nearly finished improving
these early novels first published under pen names,
I intend to start improving myself.
Considering all that needs to he done,
this new project will henceforth he known
as the hundred-year plan.
AT SIX MINUTES PAST MIDNIGHT, TUESDAY MORNing, on the way home from a late
rehearsal of her new stage show, Tina Evans saw her son, Danny, in a stranger’s car. But Danny had
been dead more than a year.
Two blocks from her house, intending to buy a quart of milk and a loaf of whole-wheat bread, Tina
stopped at a twenty-four-hour market and parked in the dry yellow drizzle of a sodium-vapor light,
beside a gleaming, cream-colored Chevrolet station wagon. The boy was in the front passenger seat of
the wagon, waiting for someone in the store. Tina could see only the side of his face, but she gasped in
The boy was about twelve, Danny’s age. He had thick dark hair like Danny’s, a nose that resembled
Danny’s, and a rather delicate jawline like Danny’s too.
She whispered her son’s name, as if she would frighten off this beloved apparition if she spoke any
Unaware that she was staring at him, the boy put one hand to his mouth and bit gently on his bent
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