“What she felt was a lighthearted sort of compassion, almost like laughter. A swish of tender hilarity, getting the better of all her sores and hollows, for the time given.”

“Tender," she said again. "Tender is kind and gentle. It's also sore, like the skin around an injury.”

“And yet, standing behind her son, waiting for the traffic light change, she remembered how in the midst of it all there had been a time when she'd felt a loneliness so deep that once, not so many years ago, having a cavity filled, the dentist's gentle turning of her chin with his soft fingers had felt to her like a tender kindness of almost excruciating depth, and she had swallowed with a groan of longing, tears springing to her eyes.”

“She had seen what it cost him and her heart quickened with compassion. For that alone, she might have loved him almost.”

“She felt the warmth of Peter's arm under her neck, and it almost felt like he was an extension of her, and like if they had souls, they lay somewhere snug between their two bodies. Maybe all of her strangeness, her curse, her always feeling like an outsider, had all existed so that she could belong here, with Peter.”

“But sometimes this hatred broke like a wave, unexplainably collapsing under its own weight, and before it would begin to well up again, she suddenly felt nothing but pure compassion for him, a kindness and forgiveness that almost broke her heart.”