“One last question, Mrs. Parker. Knowing how it all turned out, would you do it again?”

“That question makes no sense, dear. We never know how things will turn out before we act. We can imagine all the different permutations of our possible futures, but we can’t choose the one we like the best. We just have to live our lives and trust that where we end up is where we are meant to be.”

“So you don’t believe we can choose to change our destiny?…Mrs. Parker?”

“Mom?”

“I’m sorry, what’s ‘destiny’ again? It sounds so familiar. But I’m afraid I don’t know what it means.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to my amazing editor, Anita Chong, and everyone at McClelland & Stewart; my superhero agent, Chris Bucci; Michael Christie, Kris Bertin, Naben Ruthnum, Matthew J. Trafford, Taslim Alani, Shantah Kanhai-Evans, Peter and Natalie Smyk, and Valerie Uusitalo, for reading, listening, pushing me, and making me leave the house; Andrea Novoa, Samantha Mendendorp, and the rest of my dance family at World Dance Centre for keeping me sane; the Bean Fiend for having plug-ins at every booth; the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for the ongoing support; and Darren and Michelle McChristie and all my colleagues at The Walleye – Thunder Bay’s Arts and Culture Magazine for your vision, your commitment to the Thunder Bay arts community, and your unwavering belief in the vast potential of our city.

Special thanks to my family: Richard Jones, Bonita Jones, Erin Jones, Shelagh Hagen, and Elving and Sandra Josephson. You can all stop asking when the book is coming out now.

And, as always, to Cory and Morgan, for letting me live with you.

The title of Tanya’s thesis, “Constraints on the formation of depositional placer accumulations in coarse alluvial braided river systems,” is borrowed from the title of an MSc thesis by John Peter Burton of Lakehead University (Ontario Geological Survey, 1991), which is excellent reading for anyone interested in geology.