“To be sure, Wegener made mistakes. He asserted that Greenland is drifting west at about 1.6 kilometres a year, a clear nonsense. (Its more like a centimetre.)”

“It's just a passing thing,' Vishnu had told me about his girlfriend's beliefs. 'It's like their way of assimilating into the West. It's like a social club. One more generation, it'll be over.”

“Sure, he was lonely. Sure, they had a lot in common. Sure, he was attracted to her, and it was clear she felt the same about him.”

“I'm sorry."About what?"He shrugged, made uncomfortable by the question."I'm not sure. It's a Canadian thing.”

“One of the odd things about middle age, he concluded, was the strange decisions a man discovers he's made by not really making them, like allowing friends to drift away through simple neglect.”

“I hated that I felt jealous. Hated it. It's not like I'd been on my own waiting for him, just like he hadn't been waiting alone for me. We had lived, for two years. Made choices and mistakes, had good days and bad days.”