“We'd pluck the spiky chestnuts, leaving their green outer shells intact, and throw them at the neighbor boys.I always took particular care in aiming for Jack's head. He told me later that he rode his bike by my house on purpose. I asked him if he liked pain.”

“When my son, Jack, was four, I had to make a trip to Los Angeles. I asked him if he was going to miss me. 'Not so much,' Jack told me. 'You're not going to miss me?' I said. Jack shook his head, and he said, 'Love means you can never be apart.”

“We spoke about our dreams and how we always felt safe in them, no matter how bad everthing else seemed. He told me it was one of the best days of his life and then he took out his gun. A .22 rifle. And he leaned forward and whispered, "Forgive me, Taylor Markham." Before I could ask how he knew my name and what I was to forgive him for he said, "Take care of my little girl."And then he told me to close my eyes.And I've been frightened to do just that ever since.”

“He told me he fell for me the moment I shouted at him from across the street when he almost ran me off my scooter. I told him it took me longer than that. He doesn't care. I love him now, and that's all that matters.”

“His training had a fatal flaw: he cared. He asked me what I wanted to eat for dinner. He knew I liked green, and if he had a choice between a blue sweater and a green one, he’d buy the green one for me even if it cost more. I like swimming, and when we traveled, he made it a point to lay our route so it would go past a lake or a river. He let me speak my mind. My opinion mattered. I was a person to him and I was important. I saw him treat others as if they were important. For all of his supposed indifference, there is a town in Oklahoma that worships him and a little village in Guatemala that put a wooden statue of him at the gates to protect them from evil spirits. He helped people, when he thought it was right.”

“In that moment, I realized that he always had that affect on me. The ice façade I reined over myself was plucked away whenever his attention was on me. He reached over and took it away like I was a baby with candy.”