“There's nothing here to say good-bye to. There's no dancing girl. No mischievous smile. She's gone, off with her sisters, broken free, escaped. And if she were here now, she would say, "Go.”

“Tell me about yourself.""Myself?" He looks confused."Yes," I say, patting the mattress."You know all there is to know," he says, sitting beside me."Not true," I say. "Where were you born? What's your favourite season? Anything.""Here. Florida," he says. "I remember a woman in a red dress with curly brown hair. Maybe she was my mother, I'm not sure. And summer. What about you?" The last part is said with a smile. He smiles so infrequently that I consider each one a trophy.”

“There's a hazy smile on her lips that won't go away, and her hair is a mess. It's like a brushfire filled with casualties.”

“She smiles at our husband as she moves, and he blushes, overcome by her beauty. But I know what her smile really means...Her smile is her revenge.”

“Poor kid,' Jenna says, and rolls her eyes toward me for a moment. Then she returns to her book. 'She doesn't even understand what kind of place this is.”

“I listen to the rain and the thunder, and I think I hear Jenna's voice in them, sounding out a warning. She's been gone for months now. But sometimes it feels like she's more alive than ever. She's one of the indecipherable things that make sounds in the wind, and she's in every kind of dream - the good and the awful.”

“Good night, sweetheart," he says. "Good bye, sweetheart," I say. And it's so casual, so innocent that he doesn't suspect a thing.”