“Only Gracie knew what it was like to wake up at night and feel how cold sheets can get on the empty side of a bed.”

“I know how loud the seconds can sound as you stand by a window and peer out into the night.”

“She knew for certain there were all kinds of people who craved their youth, who would run like gazelles toward that fishhook of time, peeling off the years like old imagined skins.”

“The years of her life tumbled out onto the floor like marbles that she would never be able to gather up again in one bowl. The years of her life had been a made puzzle that one day gets unmade, the pieces all scattered.”

“Sometimes, in the dark of night, when no one else could hear him but me, he'd cry out, like he was fighting some silent little war in his head.”

“This is what keeps ghosts locked to the earth, that sweet burning need for something they loved and gave up too soon.”

“looking off at the past as though it were a place one might still get to”