“He thought of asking her, but for no reason he could name, the silence between them seemed too hard to break.”

“The fatted calf, the best Scotch, the hoedown could all have been his too, any time he asked for them except that he never thought to ask for them because he was too busy trying cheerlessly and religiously to earn them.”

“He was a man who fucked in silence. And when he climaxed, long, hard, endlessly, inside her tight body, he heard his voice in the darkness. Calling her name.”

“He wanted her. Her. Nothing could take that away from her. Ever. He wanted her, not the status he thought her purloined name could bring him”

“What they had between them was still as fragile as flickering candle flame, as delicate as eggshell - and he knew that if it shattered, if he somehow let it break and be destroyed, something inside him would shatter too, something that could never be fixed.”

“She had never thought about her name much before, but when he said it, it was as if she were hearing it for the first time - the hard T, the caress of the double S, the way it seemed to end on a breath.”