“Like a rainbow trout in a stream, the girl sometimes flashed her true self to him.”

“She had thought often of Ada's words about inventing new endings to stories and choosing joy over sorrow. In recent years she had decided her sister had been in part wrong. Suffering and death and loss were inescapable. And yet, what Ada had written about joy was entirely true. When she stands before you with her long, naked limbs and her mysterious smile, you must embrace her while you can.”

“As the glow of the cabin windows turned to flickers through the trees and then to black, her eyes adjusted and the starlight alone on the pure white snow was enough to light her way. The cold scorched her cheeks and her lungs, but she was warm in her fox hat and wool. An owl swooped through the spruce boughs, a slow-flying shadow, but she was not frightened. She felt old and strong, like the mountains and the river. She would find her way home.”

“When she had the strength, she began to fold the tiny clothes and blankets and cloth diapers and put them into plain brown boxes. She didn't stop working, but the sobs came and distorted her face, bleared her eyes, made her nose run. She didn't hear Jack come to the door. When she looked up he was watching her silently, and then he turned away, uncomfortable, embarrassed by her unharnessed grief. He didn't put his hand on her shoulder. Didn't hold her. Didn't say a word. Even these many years later, she was unable to forgive him that.”

“After all these years, still a spot within her fluttered at his touch, and his voice, throaty and hushed in her ear, tickled along her spine. Naked, they walked to the bedroom. Beneath the covers, they fumbled with each other’s bodies, arms and legs, backbones and hip bones, until they found the familiar, tender lines like the creases in an old map that has been folded and refolded over the years.”

“Sometimes these things happen. Life doesn't go the way we plan or hope, but we don't have to be so angry, do we?”

“...the child's arms around her, hugging her as a daughter hugs her mother. Joyfully. Spontaneously. The most beautiful of all. The most beautiful of all.”