“Exactly. How can you know it makes you happy if you’ve never experienced it?”“There are different kinds of happy,” she said. “Some kinds don’t need any proof.”

“it's like one of your maps. There's never just one way to get somewhere right? There are a bunch of different possibilities. Some of them take you where you want to go, some bring you home, and others go somewhere else entirely. You can be really certain about really uncertain things.”

“I never said I was good,” he told her, taking the pen. “Just that I liked doing it.”“That’s the best kind of good.”

“Beneath these was a small silver-edged photo album, and Emma breathed in at the sight of the engraved names: Tommy and Emma. She found herself smiling; she'd known somehow that he would have been a Tommy. And if he'd never had the chance to become any of the other things she'd imagined for him, she was happy that at least he'd had that.”

“I'm not sure I even believe in marriage," Hadley says and he looks surprised."Aren't you on your way to a wedding?""Yeah," she says with a nod. "But that's what I mean."He looks at her blankly."It shouldn't be this big fuss, where you drag everyone halfway across the world to witness your love. If you want to share your life together, fine. But it's between two people, and that should be enough. Why the big show? Why rub it in everyone's faces?"Oliver runs a hand along his jaw, obviously not quite sure what to think. "It sounds like its weddings you don't believe in," he says finally. "Not marriage.""I'm not such a big fan of either at the moment.""I don't know," he says. "I think they're kind of nice.""They're not," she insists. "They're all for show. You shouldn't need to prove anything if you really mean it. It should be a whole lot simpler than that. It should mean something.""I think it does," Oliver says quietly. "It's a promise.""I guess so," she says, unable to keep the sigh out of her voice. "But not everyone keeps that promise." she looks over toward the woman, still fast asleep. "Not everyone makes it fifty-two years, and if you do, it doesn't matter that you once stood in front of all those people and said that you would. The important part is that you had someone to stick by you all that time. Even when everything sucked.”

“There's a kind of unfamiliar electricity that goes through her at the nearness of him, and she can't help wondering if he feels it, too.”

“How long till you get her?" "Not long," she says. "Not long at all." He sighs again. "Good." "But dad?" "Yeah?" "Can you remind me where I'm going?”