“An old drinking buddy of mine had come home from a two-week binge with a rose tattooed on his arm. Around the blossom was written Fuck ‘em all/and sleep till noon. His wife made him have it surgically removed, but she hated the scar even more. Every time he touched it, he grinned. Some years later she tried to remove the grin with a wine bottle, but she only knocked out a couple of teeth, which made the grin even more like a sneer. The part that I don’t understand, though, is that they are still married. He is still grinning and she is still hating it.”

“I love you,” she said softly.Jason's arms tightened around her. He grinned sleepily. “I know.”Taylor drifted off contentedly. Until through the darkness, she heard a low, sneaky whisper. “Mrs. Taylor Andrews . . .”She didn't bother to open her eyes.“Still not gonna happen.”

“He could never forgive her for "cheating" on his father. His words, not hers. A child's word. "Selfish bitch," he'd called her once, he who knew nothing of selfishness or bitchery, no more than he knew of selflessness or whatever the opposite of bitchery was (sophrosyne?), knew only his own colossal ego, too self-centered even to understand why he couldn't simply dismiss her as evil and forget it. Sweet Christ how she hated him! But no. No more than she hated his father. It was past that. Caught in impossibilities, but knowing, at least, why she hated the part of herself she hated and why she could not escape, ever, for all the grinning cow-catchers and whistling boats and twinkling propellers in Christendom. Ah, Christendom! she thought.”

“See, the same old Ella still lives.” He grins… “She just needed a little push out.”…“No, she doesn’t. She’s gone forever.”“Try all you want, but I’m bringing her back,”

“I chuckled like Aldo Ray. If I had to endure his l'homme du monde act, he had to suffer my jaded alcoholic private eye.”

“He grinned, making sure to flash his straight, gleaming teeth, every last one of which I wanted to knock out of his head”

“He grinned at her, and she grinned at him, and it seemed to Maria that suddenly the sun came out.”