“It hasn't taken long to find herself thinking that people are watching. And that they always have been, all the time. It was only a few months ago that Kate had finally been able to imagine she was living a totally surveillance-free life.”

“After all, she herself had done the very worst thing imaginable. And she was a good person. Wasn’t she?”

“Now that it was finally here, she wasn’t surprised to find herself still reluctant to start it. Reluctant to end the part of her life when this conversation hadn’t happened yet. Reluctant to find out what her life would look like after it.”

“People will think we're having an affair," Kate said. She took a seat next to Bill on the cold slats of treated wood."That would be better than the truth.”

“Kate had always known that she herself was a strong woman. But it never occured to her that there were strong women everywhere, living mundane lives that didnt include carrying weapons amid desperate men on the fringes of third-world wars, but instead calmly taking injured children to hospitals, far from home. Far from their mothers, and fathers and siblings, from school chums and old collegues. In a place where they had no one to rely on except them-selves, for everything.”

“Kate was beginning to put distance between her sense of betrayal, her anger, and Dexter’s behavior. She was beginning to take his side. Or at least beginning to be able to see things from it.”

“This is the expat life: you never know when someone you see every day is going to disappear forever, instantly transmogrifying into a phantom. Before long you won’t be able to remember her last name, the color of her eyes, the grades that her children were in. You can’t imagine not seeing her tomorrow. You can’t imagine you yourself being one of those people, someone who one day just vanishes. But you are.”