“What to wear? I could think of no guidelines on what we were wearing this season to a party forced on you to celebrate an unwanted engagement that might turn into a violent confrontation with a vengeful maniac. Clearly brown shoes were out, but beyond that nothing really seemed de rigueur.”

“The little girls were wearing black party dresses and black party shoes, so strangers would know at once how nice they were. ”

“Why were you in a vehicle with Kate, alone? What were you wearing? What was she wearing? How long were you there? Did you do something or did you talk? What was the nature of your discussion? Could this trip have been avoided?" I rubbed my face. "So basically you're scared that His Lordship might get his panties in a bunch?""That's one way to put it.”

“Why a woman turns fifty and certain people to whom she gave birth start thinking she should be wearing orthopedic shoes is completely beyond me.”

“We have nothing left. Orphans. Castaways." She turns to me. "Childless. That is what we are. The unwanted or the un-killed. Weare together only by the wrongs done to us. There is no-one else to worry about us, to fear for our safety, or to give us comfort.”

“I was suicidal for two solid centuries once. That was during the early part of what they now call the Dark Ages, in medieval Europe. Suicidal tendencies were de rigueur at the time, and I’m nothing if not trendy.”