“There was no sun; there was no light. I was dying. I couldn't remember what the sky looked like. But I didn't die. I was lost to a sea of cold, and then I was reborn into a world of warmth.”

“I couldn't remember the last time I hadn't had to fake gratitude for a gift, and now that I actually was grateful, thank you didn't seem to cut it.”

“I remembered the pain as clearly as if I were shifting — the pain of loss. I felt the agony of the single moment that I lost myself. Lost what made me Sam. The part of me that could remember Grace's name.”

“Jack had been a jerk that night, even though I tried not to remember that part. It felt like I wasn't missing him properly if I let myself remember how much I'd despised him sometimes. Instead I tried to remember what he looked like grinning and dirty in the driveway, though these days it felt more like I was remembering a memory of a memory of his smile instead of the smile itself. When I thought too hard about that, it made me feel weightless and untethered.”

“And I told you before, I'll sell you any of the thoroughbreds.”“I didn't make any of those thoroughbreds. I didn't make them what they are.”“You made all of them what they are.”I don't look at him. “None of them made me who I am.”

“Thanks,” I say, and Finn looks uncomfortable. Mum used to say he was like a faerie; he didn't like to be thanked. I add, “Sorry.”

“I remember lying in the snow, a small red spot of warm going cold, surrounded by wolves.”