“To borrow means to take and use something belonging to someone else and then eventually return it.”

“She wanted to be irresponsible, she wanted to be looked after, to be told that she didn't have to worry about a thing and that someone else would take care of everything. How easy life would be without having grown-up problems to worry about. And then she could grow up all over again...”

“That was all part of giving someone a piece of your heart; they ended up taking a whole chunk of your mind and reserving it all for themselves.”

“But even in her laughter there was something missing. She never seemed to be truly happy; she just seemed to be passing time while she waited for something else. She was tired of just existing; she wanted to live.”

“All families have their secrets, most people would never know them, but they know there are spaces, gaps where the answers should be, where someone should have sat, where someone used to be. A name that is never uttered, or uttered just once and never again. We all have our secrets.”

“Things change so quickly. Just when you get used to something, zap! Itchanges. Just when you begin to understand someone, zap! They grow up. Thesame is happening with Katie. She changes every day; her face just becomes somuch more grown-up every time I look at her. Sometimes I have to stop pretendingI’m interested in what she’s saying in order to realize that I actually aminterested. We go shopping for clothes together and I take her advice, we eatout for lunch and giggle over silly things. I just can’t cast my mind back to thetime when my child stopped being a child and became a person.”

“He tried to tell me week after week to accept things as they were and move on with my life. But if there was one man who had put his life on hold to wait for something or someone, it was him.”