"If you remember the first time you saw Alma, you also remember the last. She was shaking her head. Or disappearing across a field. Or through your window. Come back, Alma! you shouted. But she didn’t. And though you were grown up by then, you felt as lost as a child…She was gone, and all that was left was the space where you’d grown around her, like a tree that grows around a fence. For a long time, it remained hollow… there are certain cases where the boy in question refuses to stop shouting at the top of his lungs for Alma. Stages a hunger strike. Pleads. Fills a book with his love. Carries on until she has no choice but to come back… And so she always returns, no matter how often she leaves or how far she goes, appearing soundlessly behind him and covering his eyes with her hands, spoiling for him anyone who could ever come after her."