“A father's suspicion...' she began.Is as powerful as a mother's intuition.'~pg 87, Ruana Singh and Jack Salmon”

“I fell in love with you again; While you were away - Jack Salmon”

“My mother gave Lindsey a meaningful look. 'We are not discussing this further. You can go up to your room and wait or wait with me. Your choice.'Lindsey was dumbfounded. She stared at our mother and knew what she wanted most: to flee, to run out into the cornfield where my father was, where I was, where she felt suddenly that the heart of her family had moved. But Buckley wtood warm against her.~pg 143; Lindsey, Buckley and Mom”

“On my way home from the junior high, I would sometimes stop at the edge of our property and watch my mother ride the ride-on mower, looping in and out among the pine trees, and I could remember then how she used to whistle in the mornings as she made her tea and how my father, rushing home on Thursdays, would bring her marigolds and her face would light up in yellowy in delight. They had been deeply, separately, wholly in love- apart from her children my mother could reclaim this love, but with them she began to drift. It was my father who grew toward us as the years went by; it was my mother who grew away. ~pg 153; love”

“Inside the room it was dark now, the florescent light behind my father flickering so slightly it lit only the most obvious masses in the room. My sister was in a chair pulled up alongside the bed, her head resting on the side of it with her hand extended out to touch my father. My father, deep under, was lying on his back. My mother could not know that I was there with them, that here were the four of us, so changed now from the days when she tucked Lindsey and me into bed and went to make love to her husband, our father. Now she saw the pieces. She saw that my sister and father, together, had become a piece. She was glad of it.I had played a hide-and-seek game of love with my mother as I grew up, courting her attention and approval in a way that I had never had to with my father. I didn't have to play hide-and-seek anymore. As she stood in the darkened room and watched my sister and father, I knew one of the things that heaven meant. I had a choice, and it was not to divide my family in my heart.~pg 154; Susie's family and heaven”

“Exactly,' she said, and made her point as simply as that. There wasn't a lot of bullshit in my heaven.~pg 8”

“It was late in Ruana and Ray's visit when Samuelstarted talking about the gothic revival house that Lindseyand he had found along an overgrown section of Route 30. Ashe told Abigail about it in detail, describing how he hadrealized he wanted to propose to Lindsey and live there withher, Ray found himself asking, "Does it have a big hole inthe ceiling of the back room and cool windows above thefront door?" "Yes," Samuel said, as my father grew alarmed. "But itcan be fixed, Mr. Salmon. I'm sure of it." "Ruth's dad owns that," Ray said. Everyone was quiet for a moment and then Ray continued. "He took out a loan on his business to buy up oldplaces that aren't already slated for destruction. He wantsto restore them," Ray said. "My God," Samuel said. And I was gone.(Susie finnally giving up on earth and moving on)”