“He would be relegated to a post best left fastened and buried.”

“The straining of dreams against the fabric of reality. Growing up meant burying possibilities, one after another.”

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

“How few days are left in the lives of anyone. How few hours.”

“Her smile was genuine-looking and later he would mull her question over and over in his head until it mushroomed into something larger.”

“Memory gallops, then checks up and veers unexpectedly; to memory, the order of occurrence is arbitrary. Winkler was still on an airplane, hurtling north, but he was also pushing farther back, sinking deeper into the overlaps, to the years before he even had a daughter, before he had even dreamed of the woman who would become his wife.”

“How much easier it would have been if he and Sandy could have fought: a skirmish in the night, some harsh words, some measure of the truth actually spoken aloud.”