“It had been years since she question his fidelity, but he'd stepped on to the old fame track again, and that was where the road had taken them before. Infidelity could be forgiven, but forgetting it was impossible. Strangely, that wasn't what bothered her the most. What bothered her was that she didn't really care.”

“She had been ready to love this man from the moment she first saw him. In all these years, that had never changed. They'd hurt each other, let each other down, and yet, here they were after everything, together. She needed him now, needed him to remind her that she was live, that she wasn't alone, that she hadn't lost everything.”

“But it had gotten so boring, all that crying and wanting and needing. This year she'd realized that she'd never be like her mom, and the realization had freed her. She stopped trying to get good grades and make good friends, and do everything well. She had flourished in her rebellion, reveled in it.”

“Nina stared at the woman who had raised her and saw the truth at last. Her mother was a lioness. A warrior. A woman who’d chosen a life of hell for herself because she wanted to give up and didn’t know how. And with that small understanding came another, bigger one. Nina suddenly saw her own life in focus. All these years, she’d been traveling the world over, looking for her own truth in other woman’s lives. But it was here all along, at home with the one woman she’s never even tried to understand. No wonder Nina had never felt finished, never wanted to publish her photographs of the woman. Her quest had always been leading up to this moment, this understanding. She’s been hiding behind the camera, looking through the glass, trying to find herself. But how could she? How could any woman know her own story until she knew her mother’s? ”

“If she wasn't careful, she'd slide without a ripple into the gently flowing stream of her old life, pulled back under the current without a wimper of protest. Another housewife lost in the flow.”

“She'd been criticized for holding the reins of parenthood too tightly, of controlling her children too completely, but she didn't know how to let go. From the moment she'd first decided to become a mother, it had been an epic battle.”

“She was touching his body with her tongue, and he felt it there, but somehow what she was doing went deeper. As if that gentle, moist tongue of hers were flicking his heart as well.”