LITMIR.BIZ

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      She could still climb to the top of the tower with only one or two stops along the way to catch her breath and rest her legs. Annie had to stop too, or maybe she just pretended she needed to so Mary didn’t feel too old. Mary led her right up to the lantern room, where the enormous honeycomb lens took up so much space there was barely room to walk around it.

      “Oh, my God,” Annie said, awestruck. “I’ve never seen so much glass in one place in my entire life.” She looked at Mary. “I love glass,” she said. “This is fantastic.”

      Mary let her slip inside the lens, through the opening made when one segment of glass had to be removed a few years earlier after being damaged in a storm. Annie turned slowly in a circle, taking in all of the landscape, which Mary knew would appear upside down to her through the curved glass of the lens.

      It took her a while to lure Annie away from the lens and down to the next level, where they stepped out onto the gallery. They sat on the warm iron floor, and Mary pointed out landmarks in the distance. Annie was quiet at first, overwhelmed, it seemed, and Mary watched her eyes fill with tears at the beauty spread out below them. She learned right then that nearly everything made this girl cry.