“It was impossible to understand how brief it is. It seemed like youth would last so long; it would last forever. But it's just a blink.”

“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.”

“Because she'd once made a horrible decision that would haunt her forever, and because the one person in the world she'd trusted without reservation was lying to her.”

“It would make a lot more sense if she had imagined this whole thing, her whole life. Now would just be now, attached to some other, more straightforward past.”

“It's impossible to know which parts of the woman, if any, were real.”

“It hadn't taken very long to come clean, after so many years of so many lies. It was surprising how undifferent she felt, now that everything— nearly everything— was out in the open.”

“You go about your business, as far away from these lines as possible, pretending they're not there. So when you eventually find yourself at one of these lines, your toe inching over, it's not only shocking and horrifying, it's banal. Because you've always been aware the lines were there, where you were trying with all your might not to see them, knowing that sooner or later you would.”