“A kid thinks her mother is just that -- hers. A mother is also a woman, an independent being, who doesn't want to be reminded by anyone, child or otherwise, of her tree-trunk thighs. The world made women's private lives a public affair to people who knew them and even people who didn't.”

“Once this kid came into the world, Sally knew, she would live in constant terror of somehow injuring or losing her. Having her tucked deep inside her belly was the safest she would ever feel about the child, and even that was scary.”

“And then there were the things Sally knew her mother would have loved. Those, too, made it easy to imagine how she might come back to life, since nothing good seemed quite real without her there to approve of it.”

“Every woman needs secrets,' her mother said with a smile then, her eyes meeting Sally's in the rearview mirror. 'Remember that when you're old like me, pumpkin, because the world has a way of making a woman's life everyone else's business--you have to dig out a little place that's only yours.”

“She didn't have a single friend on earth to see her off. She had outlived them all.”

“All of it remained, a constant reminder: He existed, then he didn't. The world spins on, indifferent to the mess.”

“Ruby shook her head, but she smiled, a look that said she loved this man, loved the life they had made together. They seemed utterly comfortable with one another, like they knew each other all the way through.”