“The groom always smiles proudly because he's convinced he's accomplished something quite wonderful. The bride smiles because she's been able to convince him of it.”

“Um,' he said, because she was smiling at him and he was an idiot.”

“She told him of ship voyages she had taken to places he had never heard of, and stories he knew were all untrue, were bad not-truths, even, but he nodded, and tried to convince himself to be convinced, tried to believe her, because he knew that the origin of the story is always an absence and he wanted to live among presences.”

“He had a new girl, and I told him she looked like Marilyn Monroe. He smiled because he thought I meant she was beautiful, and I smiled because I meant she looked like a corpse.”

“He smiled like he couldn't help it. She couldn't believe it. He was actally smiling, teeth and all. Had she ever seen him smile before? No, she realized, because right now, it was such a jarring thing to witness that for a moment it felt as though she was sharing the car with a stranger.”

“She doesn't like to talk about him, and I know that she hasn't been the same since he died. She's not quite here anymore; there's something missing in all of her smiles, like a blurry spot or a camera lens out of focus. Part of her followed him, wherever it was he went.”