“They both continue to stare at each other, expressionless, motionless, in the weirdest standoff I've ever seen almost as if they're calling the other's bluff. It is the way you'd look at a perfect stranger, although if they were actually strangers someone would break down and exchange a pleasantry after such prolonged eye contact. I start to wonder if maybe I shouldn't reintroduce my own parents.”

“We talked to each other as you'd talk to a stranger you'd met while drunk after the barman calls for last orders, sure you wouldn't remember the other's face in the morning. (69)”

“What is was, was that we complemented each other. We just fit in this way that made strangers ask us if we were sisters, even though her hair was blond and curly and mine was straight and dark. Even though her eyes were blue and mine were brown. Maybe it was the way we acted, or spoke, just moved. The way we would look at something and both have the same thought at the same moment, and turn to each other at the same time and start to say the same thing.”

“Although in the past I had seen a few exchanges of genuine affection between them, the Warshaw men were awkward and ill at ease with each other.”

“Each time I see the Upside-Down ManStanding in the water,I look at him and start to laugh,Although I shouldn't oughtter.For maybe in another worldAnother timeAnother town,Maybe HE is right side upAnd I am upside down”

“They had each other and there was a love between them that would withstand anything. Alina and I had always intuited, with no small wry pique, that, although our parents adored us and would do anything for us, they loved each other more. As far as I was concerned, that was the way it should be. Kids grow up, move on and find a love of their own. The empty nest shouldn't leave parents grieving. It should leave them ready and excited to get on with living their own adventure, which would, of course, include many visits to children and grandchildren.”