“I didn’t mind the quiet stretches. It was like we were trying out the idea of being side by side.”

“It was like we were exchanging codes, on how to be a father and a daughter, like we'd read about it in a manual, translated from another language, and were doing our best with what we could understand.”

“I'd stopped waving to passengers in cars by then- I'd grown suspicious of people and all the complications of interior lives- so I sat and watched and rode and thought, and as soon as the bus doors opened, we all rolled out the doorand split apart like billiard balls.”

“Many kids, it seemed, would find out that their parents were flawed, messed-up people later in life, and I didn't appreciate getting to know it all so strong and early.”

“Being there was like having a good cry, the clearing of the air after weight has been held.”

“I am the drying meadow; you the unspoken apology; he is the fluctuating distance between mother and son; she is the first gesture that creates a quiet that is full enough to make the baby sleep.My genes, my love, are rubber bands and rope; make yourself a structure you can live inside.Amen.”

“YOU'RE IN MY MOUTH, I said. GET OUT OF MY MOUTH.”