“And this feeling, permeating every waking minute, that he had made too many wrong decisions.”

“It was wrong and impossible and illicit and yet each minute with the boy was a gift, a scene from a story he could not leave.”

“Maybe the idea was that he could write so many letters, deliver so many envelopes back to Sandy, eventually he'd have sent all of himself, and could exist more there than he did here.”

“Every small, concurrent event had slowed down and assumed an excruciating clarity.”

“he could feel his hope wilting.”

“Over time his images of the baby, like photographs handled too often, had worn down and creased, lost their definition. ”

“the air would get so heavy with moisture he imagined he could feel each bloated molecule as it toppled into his lungs.”