“I've been thinking about your Father a lot lately, and I've realized something. I married Gary specifically for the fact that he wasn't Curtis. If your Father has an opposite, it's Gary. I just need to decide if I want to spend the rest of my life with someone I married by default.”

“I think you'll be a great teacher," said Gary. That's his role in my life: blind encourager and ambassador of false senses of security.”

“She rarely lets me off the hook, holding me to a different standard of emotional intelligence than the other men in her life - even my Brothers. She allows them to behave like Gary, docilely going about their lives, content and happy and completely oblivious to the sticky, ugly things just a few inches below the surface of everything.”

“Married silence is a specific kind of silence, typically one in which the woman goes mute while the man pretends as if it's perfectly normal that she hasn't spoken in hours.”

“You look good," I tell my reflection. "Hot?" But this last part comes out with a question mark at the end. I've never been good at sales.”

“Sonya's a real person, like your Mother. Thirty years ago, that was your Mother's biggest flaw in my eyes, and now that's the thing I love most about Sonya. It's funny how things end, isn't it?”

“That's me, giving myself a tough-love speech. I'm going to start doing that more often, I've decided. One might as well put his inner monologue to good use.”