“Until then she hadn't considered that there was a trade off, that she might not fit anymore in places where she'd been comfortable.”

“She had been so consumed with escaping her own misery, she hadn't considered the misery she might inflict.”

“It hadn't been so long ago, yet sometimes she felt that she'd been an altogether different person back then.”

“Things might have been different if she hadn't been able to drift; if she'd had to concentrate on her next meal, instead of dwelling on all the injuries she felt we'd done her. An unearned income encourages self-pity in those already prone to it.”

“It's not forever', she'd said, but to my mother, it might as well have been. She had make her choice, and this was it, where she felt safe, in a world she could, for the most part, control.”

“She'd lost her fury, somewhere, as they'd talked. She didn't feel it anymore. She wished she did, because she preferred it to the emptiness that had settled in its place.”