I'm half-way into the book (ch. 15) but the beginning of the book is too precious. Here's how this story begins in chapter 1:
I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other.
When you're five, you know your age down to the month. Even in your twenties you know how old you are. I'm twenty-three, you say, or maybe twenty-seven. But then in your thirties something strange starts to happen. It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm -- you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you're not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it.
Just a few lines before the first chapter opens, Jacob prefaces his story about knowing the importance of keeping a confidence and says that in "seventy years, I've never told a blessed soul."
This story touches my heart...
I've read it like 3 other times already.