“He knew it even before he could fully articulate it: between East and West lay a terrain that needed to be charted by stories, fused by his new eyes and imagination, and he needed to tell those stories if he ever hoped to be whole again.”

“That pew became a confessional. There, with a fully clothed, fully present Kyle, he left his plans for lifelong commitment to only the Church in a smoldering pile. This woman, this broken, brave, perfect woman was what he needed. They talked again—about funny parishioners and childhood stories. Anything they thought, they said.”

“Tony knew if he ever needed anything done again, he was calling on the Lesbian Network of Massachusetts. Those girls worked fast. And they were everywhere.”

“He would talk to them of stories and books, and explain to them how stories wanted to be told and books wanted to be read, and how everything that they ever needed to know about life and the land of which he wrote, or about any land or realm that they could imagine, was contained in books. And some of the children understood, and some did not.”

“So why are you here?"He lifted his hands and made as if to lay them on her arms, but just before they touched he stopped and let them fall. Then, simply, as though it were all the explanation she could ever need, he said, "Because I love you.”

“He knew he couldn't tell stories, that he always included extraneous details & tangents that interested only him.”