“The wolf was at the door. His shadow spilled into the room, taking it over.”

“No? Part girl, part wolf? Do they lick their butter knives?”

“Why does it always seem that I have only the shadow of my father? I'm like a child constantly grabbing at his coattails and missing.”

“I can see his pain, see it in the way he runs his fingers through his hair, over and over, and I understand what it costs him to hide it all.”

“On TV, talking heads wrung their hands over a lack of traditional feminine values and wondered if girls’ sports were to blame. Then they cut to a commercial featuring a sexy college coed vacuuming her dorm room in her underwear.”

“Adina sat up. “It’s denigrating and objectifying.” “No. It’s eye shadow and lipstick and sex and mystery and magic and transformation and fun. And nobody’s taking that away from me. You will pry my Petal Power lip gloss out of my cold, dead hands,” Shanti insisted.”

“Did God ever cry over his lost angel, I wonder?”