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constellations set into the barrel ceiling of the huge space. I had read about the ceiling in Mark Helprin’s mythical Winter’s Tale (a must read, if only for the ceiling description and the scene of a mighty mother skating triumphantly down the frozen Hudson River, baby on her back), but that was after Anne-Marie first showed it to me. The stars and figures were hard to make out in those days before its restoration, but under Anne-Marie’s pointing finger, I gaped at the scope of the constellations. Anne-Marie had given architectural tours of New York City as a graduate student at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, and she knew her stuff.
    The ceiling in Grand Central is fascinating for a lot of reasons, but what most people don’t realize is that the entire night sky is presented backward. The artist Paul César Helleu based his sky on a medieval manuscript that represented a God’s-eye view of the universe, seen from above the stars rather than from below. “Or else Helleu just made a huge mistake and tried to explain it away by using the medieval excuse,” Anne-Marie explained. I could tell she thought he’d been a lazy scholar and made the huge mistake. Careful as she was in her own work, there was no question the ceiling would have been perfect under her direction.
    Hopelessly late for the high school drop-off, I hopped back on the train after lunch to make it home in time for the middle school bus. I continued reading on the train, any potential sleepiness brought on by the several glasses of champagne beaten back by the story: I read with eyes wide open. Barely glancing up at the ticket collector, I mumbled, “Thanks” and thumbed on through the pages. A new tenant moves into the building where Paloma and Renée live. He befriends the two of them, and the gentle force of Kakuro’s friendship coaxes Paloma, and then Renée, out of hiding. They begin to reveal their inner selves and to find in each other understanding and appreciation. Together, the three of them, Kakuro, Paloma, and Renée, recognize the infinite possibilities of surprise that life offers. Neither people nor life is so predictable after all.
    I arrived home in time to dish out after-school snacks. Peanut butter on crackers, apple slices, apple juice. Chocolates given to me by my mother, shared now with the boys. More birthday kisses, and then I took myself away. I planted myself in my purple chair. I had just a few more chapters to go in The Elegance of the Hedgehog .
    Would Paloma stop fearing her future? Would Renée stop fearing her past? The last pages of the book were brilliant with wisdom. Each moment caught in a lifetime of experience can be brought forward. Sustenance in the here and now is found in the past. Good things have happened before and will happen again. Moments of beauty and light and happiness live forever. Paloma commits herself to finding those “moments of always within never” as a reason to live. She is anticipating moments of beauty because she knows they will come. The proof is in the moments she has already experienced. I could find those “moments of always within never” as a comfort to my pain, and as a promise for my future. I remembered what I had forgotten in my years of sorrow after Anne-Marie died: that I would always have my memories of Anne-Marie to sustain me.
    I walked out into the kitchen, slammed the book down on the counter, and said to my kids, “This is going to be a great year.”
    The Elegance of the Hedgehog reminded me, bone and blood, heart and soul, of Anne-Marie. It was as if I could hear her saying to me, “Yes, Nina, life is hard, unfair, painful. But life is also guaranteed—one hundred percent, no doubt, no question—to offer unexpected and sudden moments of beauty, joy, love, acceptance, euphoria.” The good stuff. It is our ability to recognize and then hold on to the moments of good stuff that allows us