“I was looking at Gavin's face this morning when he saw you in that dress and, honey, he liked what he saw! Now you lie here and take a nap. When you wake up, I'll help you bathe and we'll put some of that good-smelling stuff on you and comb your hair pretty. Tonight when he comes to bed, you prance around for a while real innocent-like in your lacy undergarments. Then strip 'em off, jump into bed, and cuddle up close to 'im. If he doesn't consummate the wedding, then he deseves to be called a damn gelding!”

“Taking care of you," he said mildly. "I'm getting you ready for bed right now. And if you start throwing up all of that poison you drank tonight, I'll take you to the bathroom and hold your hair out of your face for you.”

“There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn't that a little like saving up sex for your old age?”

“What does he smell like?” “Smell like?” I scrunched up my face. “You know, he looks like he’d smell good.”

“In a way he made me think of a child doll, with briliant faintly red-brown glass eyes - a doll that had been found in an attic. I wanted to polish him with kisses, clean him up, make him evevn more radiant than he was."That's what you always want," he said softly... "When you found me under Les Innocents," he said, "you wanted to bathe me with perfume and dress me in velvevt with great embroidered sleeves.""Yes," I said, "and comb your hair, your beautiful russet hair." My tone was angry. "You look good to me, you damnable little devil, good to embrace and good to love.”

“When they're little, and you go for years without a good night's sleep, you wonder if they'll ever make it through to morning without finding some reason to wake you up. But then one day you look at the clock and it's 7:30 a.m......For a panicked moment, you wonder if your child is---well, I can't even say it. You leap out of bed and run into his room and if you haven't wakened him up with all your commotion by then, you stand there for a minute trying to make sure that he's still breathing. You see the chest rising and falling and you let out a sigh. There's nothing wrong. He's just growing up. He doesn't need you anymore, is all; he doesn't need to wake you up in the night.”