“Reece would be back. I knew it like I knew my name. There would be a time and place to deal with him. But that was the future. I needed to keep my focus on the now. Because at the end of the day right now was all I had.”

“I would wear pink because I knew my future was anything but rosy. I would accessorize myself to the hilt, and I would wear flirty shoes because my world needed more beauty to counter all the ugliness in it. I would wear pink because I hated gray, I didn’t deserve white, and I was sick of black.”

“I knew I would wish for that moment back every day of my life, so I lived it with everything I had.”

“I wasn't in love with Simon any more. I hadn't been in love with Simon for a long time. I was in love with not being on my own, with having someone there at the end of the day and now I knew I didn't need that. My heart was not broken over him: it was breaking for the things I had wanted from him. And I didn't want them any more.”

“I was in the ecstasy of babies then. I was on a long, oxytocin high. Noone told me about this. Noone told me I would feel like a wild animal ready to kill or be killed at a moment’s notice with no hesitation at all right now for my baby. I would sit on the bed at night nursing Lally and I would imagine a lion jumping through the window. I would plan how to kill him. I knew the lion would be immediately dead. I knew that no matter what, my baby would survive.”

“For the first time in some years, I didn't care what Father said to me, even though I knew that by the end of the day my conscience would probably win out and I would end up apologizing to him as well.”