In her youth she was tall, unusually tall for a girl in that area. She stood straight, her neck stretched, as if she rose a little above the others not out of arrogance but out of conviction that if she looked far enough she would see her future coming toward her. She had thick, dark blonde hair, and a face that changed with the light. One face in church, another at the fair, another when she sat alone on the front steps of her house and scraped the paint off the railing with her nail.