Excerpt from The Speed of Light by Elizabeth Rosner, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She gives me my own key because most of the time when I come on Friday afternoons she is somewhere else, singing. The first time I see her brother, Julian, he is on the sidewalk in front of the building, staring for maybe half an hour at a tree twice as high as his head. I am cleaning Paula's living room, and I see him from the window.

Excerpted from The Speed of Light by Elizabeth Rosner Copyright 2001 by Elizabeth Rosner. Excerpted by permission of Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.