Excerpt: She was a runaway who taught me more about life than anyone has before or since. And when she was gone, my innocence left with her... I pray I can get the story right. My memory, like my eyesight, has waned with age. Still, there are things that become clearer to me as I grow older. This much I know: too many things were kept secret in those days. Things that never should have been hidden. And things that should have been.