“But if I didn’t want to be alone, then why didn’t I want to be with anyone else?”

“I didn’t want to invade hisprivacy; I didn’t want to fight with him; I didn’t want anyone else to ever hurt him. I just wantedhim to be a child forever.” She glanced up, crying harder now. “But you can’t do that, if you’re aparent. Because part of your job is letting them grow up.”

“I realized that it was not that I didn’t want to go on without him. I did. It was just that I didn’t know why I wanted to go on”

“I didn’t want them to be gay anymore. I didn’t want people like Mrs. Perry to make a face and step away from them; I didn’t want Mike to shuffle his feet and clear frogs out of his throat whenever he talked to my dad; and I didn’t want Chad to go around making fun of himself so nobody else could. And most of all, I didn’t want them to have AIDS.”

“I told him I didn’t want to hurt him, or anyone else. I just feel that sometimes I am better company only to myself, because of what is happening in my life, than I am or would be to anyone else.”

“I didn’t want to go, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to be invited.”