“The wine- it made her limbs loose and liquid, made her feel that a hummingbird had taken the place of her heart.”

“Sometimes it made her want to put her fist through glass; other times, it made her cry a river.”

“It made me think of my mother, when she made her pie crusts. She'd prick little holes all over the place. So it can breath, she said. I was just breathing. I closed my eyes, anticipating each cut, feeling that wash of relief when it was done.”

“And he made love to her, offering his body in both tenderness and anger, unsure which was the best way to pass her bits of his soul so that she could patch her own with it”

“But Katie knew it was a sin, had known from the moment she made the decision to lie with Adam. However, the transgression wasn't making love without the sanction of marriage. It was that for the first time in her life, Katie had put herself first. Put her own wants and needs above everything and everyone else.”

“There was no easy switch that she could flip to stem the flow of feelings, no way to drain the memories that pooled like acid in her stomach because her heart no longer knew what to do with them.”

“When she had packed all the artifacts that made up their personal history into liquor store boxes, the house became strictly a feminine place. She stood with her hands on her hips, stoically accepting the absence of old Boston Celtics coasters and the tangle of fishing poles, the old dartboard from a Scots pub, the toolbox and downhill skis, the silky patterned ties which sat in the base of one box like a writing mass of snakes. Without these things, one tended to notice the bright eyelet curtains, the vase filled with yawning crocuses, a needlepoint pillow ... Overall, the house looked much like her apartment had eight years ago, before she had met him.”