“Warmth pooled in her belly, and spiraled through her body. Her breasts, her abdomen, her knees. Her knees? She'd never really had an orgasm in her knees before.”

“She had breasts that sagged to her knees. But that's ok, because when it got cold, I could see her nipples through her kneepads.”

“It was a long time since whe's been young and it was unlikely that she'd ever been lovely. She stood like a man, square-on. Her breasts pushed out the old tee-shirt, but it was clear from the way she stood that she'd forgotten about breasts being sexy. Her breasts made bulges in her shirt, the same way her knees made bulges in her black track pants, that was all.”

“This feeling, this tentative flutter in her belly - this was hers. This was sunlight on her face. It was the warmth she'd dreamed of. It was a curl of honest attraction, the first she'd experienced in years.”

“Over the ten years since she'd been born, the trees of Briary Swamp, West Virginia, had peered through May's window night after night. They had watched over her thoughtful brown eyes, the imaginative crook of her head, the strong character of her knobby knees. The trees had laughed at the jokes May told her cat. Their leaves had whispered over her wild inventions, her colorful stories, her drawings.”

“I hadn’t heard her voice in so fucking long. I almost collapsed right there and then, her presence rolling through me, wanting to bring me to my knees like she had before.”