“Our story begins eight years ago when Ms.Jacobs was living in London with Mr. McAllister.However, she had to leave the country urgentlydue to a family emergency.”“Considering the ‘he-was-dead’ defence, I’msure this will be hugely entertaining.” Lily didn’tsee it but she heard the scoffing behind Nate’s attorney’stone, that would be attorney number twoor Sarcastic Attorney. Her startled eyes moved tothe man who, she noted distractedly, was staringat her with extreme distaste.“Well, I’m not sure one would describe losingboth of one’s parents in a plane crash as ‘entertaining’,”Alistair noted blandly.”

“My eyes rolled over to my best friend, Kate Green, who was doodling intricate flowers all over her notes and looked like she was thoroughly entertaining herself.”

“As she bent over the child she realized that the tragedy of death had to do entirely with what was left unfulfilled. She was ashamed that such a simple insight should have eluded her all these years. Make something beautiful of your life. Wasn't that the adage of Sister Mary Joseph Praise lived by? Hema's second thought was that she, deliverer of countless babies, she who'd rejected the kind of marriage her parents wanted for her, she who felt there were too many children in the world and felt no pressure to add to that number, understood for the first time that having a child was about cheating death. Children were the foot wedged in the closing door, the glimmer of hope that in reincarnation there would be some house to go to, even if one came back as a dog, or a mouse, or a flea that lived on the bodies of men. If, as Matron and Sister Mary Joseph Praise believed, there was a raising of the dead, then a child would be sure to see that its parents were awakened. Provided, of course, the child didn't die with you in a plane crash.”

“All ghost stories come to this, she understood. All ghost stories end in one of two ways: You are dead or I am dead. If people only understood this, Portia thought, they would never be frightened, they would only need to ask themselves, Who among us has died?And then she occurred to her that she was the ghost in her story. She had spent years haunting her own life, without ever noticing.”

“She was an original ... She was an eccentric. She'd come alive like a fire, telling funny stories and entertaining everyone, then she'd suddenly run out of fuel, make her excuses and leave. You always knew when she'd had enough. Those that didn't would find themselves talk to the walls.”

“Hazel should have done something—left a note, pretended she was going to go visit Jack’s aunt Bernice. Something. She was so busy thinking about the one she needed to rescue she didn’t think at all about the one she was leaving behind. She was supposed to take care of her mother, too. She was not supposed to be sipping honey tea with people who are just like the parents you think you are supposed to have. Her mother was what she had.”