By the time she was a teenager, fear had sometimes danced around the edges of her life, but the nightmares, terrifying visions of hands reaching for her, had disappeared long ago. If her relationship with her mother and father wasn’t everything she could hope for, her relationships with her grandmother and uncle were more. Her uncle Hugh was lean and distinguished, with eyes that never wavered and long, graceful hands that passed easily for God’s when he celebrated mass. He rarely laughed, but when he did, he infused everyone around him with the conviction that the world could really be the kind of place he talked about on Sunday mornings. He had come into Dawn’s life relatively late. She had always adored her father, although he had little time to spend with her. Unlike Cappy, Ferris had carefully cultivated her love, but he was busy establishing himself in state politics, and she never had his full attention. When they were together, he managed to watch every thing else going on around him, too.
