“[My mother] once cooked a ham and later found it in my father's shirt drawer. I am not kidding.”

“Once, I was my mother's daughter. Now I am my daughter's mother.”

“He's a cabinet minister and his mother was a cook. My father was a doctor and I'm a cook. Perhaps I passed him on the way down, or did he pass me on the way up?”

“He told me this while ripping through his duffel bag, throwing clothes into drawers with reckless abandon. Chip did not believe inhaving a sock drawer or a T-shirt drawer. He believed that all drawers were created equal and filled each with whatever fit. My mother wouldhave died.”

“And a mother without children is not a mother at all, and if I am not a mother, than I am nothing. Nothing. I am like sugar dissolved in a glass of water. Or, I am like salt, which disappears when you cook with it. I am salt. Without my children, I cease to exist.”

“A: Funny about my mother. All my life, from the time I was just a little kid, I thought of her as a sad person. I mean, the way some people are tall or fat or skinny. My father always seemed the stronger one. As if he was a bright color and she was a faded color. I know it sounds crazy.T: Not at all.A: But later, when I learned the truth about our lives, I found she was still sad. But strong, too. Not faded at all. It wasn't sadness so much as fear--the Never Knows.”