“I’d never seen a man cry before, only on TV. I’d never even seen Dad close to crying. Those tears looked so odd on you. It was like the strength of you just seemed to sap away. The surprise of it stopped me from being so scared.”

“The whole time, I’d never seen, all you had spread before me. The whole time, I’d never seen, all I need was inside me. Now, I feel so different.”

“I was eleven when my father left, so neither of us really knew our fathers. I’d met mine of course, but then I only knew my dad as a child knows a parent, as a sort of crude outline filled in with one or two colors. I’d never seen my father scared or cry. I’d never heard him admit to any wrongdoing. I have no idea what he dreamed of. And once I’d seen a smile pinned to one cheek and darkness to the other when my mum had yelled at him. Now he was gone, and I was left with just an impression—one of male warmth, big arms, and loud laughter.”

“Are you going to cry when you hand your Evie Girl over to me? You never cry for me. I think I’d like to see it.”

“It’s just that you go so crazy being alone like that. Sometimes he’d forget my water or food and I’d cry and cry and cry.” She stops talking and looks out the window. “I would try to tell myself stories to pass the time. Fairy tales. Parts of books. But they got used up.”

“I don't cry to get my way," I defended my emotional inabilities, and then began wiping away the tears. "It's just this is really hard.""Annalisa, if I thought for one second that the tears were fake, you wouldn't sway me. But, I've never seen so many honest tears in my life.”