“Peter was the current someone she used to keep from relying on herself, the crutch to hold on to, to promise herself that if she only had him to love, she would have it all come together. Why did she keep throwing men up as smoke screens between herself and herself?”

“Oh the benison of it, she thought, for she seemed to need comfort now, not only because she was tired after the journey and far away from John, but because she had admitted to herself that she loved him, had let her love sweep over her like a kind of illness, 'giving in' to flu, conscious only of the present moment.”

“She didn't know how to love, to give herself to someone, to out herself in someone else's keeping and take him into hers. She didn't trust anyone with her heart - or the darker places of her soul.”

“She felt as if she'd always been holding a part of herself back, saving it, and she had a terrible fear she would end up saving it forever. That she would die with whole parts of herself unused.”

“...she gave him all the love she could not give herself. She loved him becasue he was the embodiment of those attributes she wanted for herself...”

“So she forgave him. And instead she berated herself for her suspicion, for her snooping. For the things she promised herself she wouldn't do, the feelings she wouldn't have.”

“Mom, I promised to behave. It wasn't easy. I mean, she couldn't help herself. She was all over this hunk of Navajo manhood and I had to keep telling her I'd promised not to let her violate me. Eventually she wore herself out and fell asleep.”