“She knows we can see her, right?""The light's behind her," Teagan pointed out. "All she sees is her own reflection.""Face check," Abby said, as Ms Skinner stretched her lips again, then puckered. She dug a lipstick out of her purse and applied it. "Uh-huh. Now the hair," Abby said. As if on cue, Ms. Skinner rearranged her ginger bangs, fluffed them, then twisted a strand around her finger to make it curl. "That woman's man-hunting. Hide your dad, Tea.""Don't ler her get Dad!" Aiden shouted from his fort."Nobody is getting Dad," Teagan assured him.”

“She had time to make room for him in her closet. The cat had time to get used to him. They had all the time they needed, because he'd told her he was hers, and he was a man of his word. "I've got all I need," she told him.He leaned down and kissed her again, then stroked a finger over her temple, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I want you to know," he said. "That you're the best choice I ever made.""No regrets?""No regrets.”

“My mother has made choices in her life, as we all must, and she is at peace with them. I can see her peace. She did not cop out on herself. The benefits of her choices are massive-a long, stable marriage to a man she still calls her best friend; a family that has extended now into grandchildren who adore her; a certainty in her own strength. Maybe some things were sacrificed, and my dad made his sacrifices, too-but who amongst us lives without sacrifice?”

“Mr. Chan," Grace said as the wind whipped strands of her hair across her face. "What are you doing here?" She shouted over the howling wind as it lashed around them."Catering," the old man said flashing her a toothy gold grin.”

“She looked so happy, so content, so beautiful. Her long brown curls swept around her face at every turn. I loved the way she would always get a strand of hair caught just over her nose so she would have to brush it away with her fingers.”

“She starkly sees her inanimate future blocked out before her right through to her own end—without him... ...and worst of all, she knows she will be asked about him and be called upon to talk about him and tell the story again and again...her jaws will work without end with all that talking her jaws will chew up the ravel of all her remaining life, telling the same story until it becomes bare and alien and something blunt to her; more the belonging of other people, and no longer hers. Now she has to live ordinarily...she's going to have to numb herself if she's going to go on—no going on from this point without getting numb.”