“The thought makes me reach back for my knife, my sharp, throat-cutting security blanket, as I look around.”

“We walk around like a photograph that my dad's been cut out of.”

“I don’t have my knife,” I mumble. “Don’t start that,” Anna says. She walks away from me sharply. “Arthur without Excalibur was still Arthur.”

“But I don't think she ever figured on raising a son by herself. Her family was supposed to form a circle. Now we walk around like a photograph that my dad's been cut out of.”

“You'd better eat that," she says."I'm taking it easy on my stomach," I protest. "Come on. It just had a knife in it.”

“I even had this idea that the knife stopped working, that after a certain time it just stops working for you, when your number is up. I thought maybe it was me who had done it. That I killed him just by growing older, and being ready to replace him.”

“I knew they were cruel. Maybe I felt … sorry for him.” I snort. “Sorry for me? I could’ve handled those guys.” “They smashed the back of your head in with a board from my house.”