“When she opened her eyes, the outside door was filled with flame. The propane tank by the kitchen could blow any minute. That left the bedroom back window.”

“Light spilled from an open door upstairs. Belinda came and sat several stairs above him, her bare feet just visible out of the corner of his eye. He did not turn around. He could not begin to imagine how she must feel towards him. After a few minutes, she got up and retreated. The bedroom door closed again.”

“All Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.”

“But the cry of a baby the minute she yanked open the front door tightened her chest so hard she could scarcely catch her breath. Her baby was dead. Theirs weren’t.”

“Outside, as she passed the kitchen window, she watched her breath appear before her in the lamplight and then it died away in moist clouds. This was the smoke of her internal fire and her soul. Every breath was a letter to the world. These she mailed into the cold air leaning back with pursed lips to send it upward. ”

“Her imagination was by habit ridiculously active; when the door was not open it jumped out the window.”