“You did the best you could," and she seemed to believe I had.I said, "I've just been going through the motions," using the expression my father had after he'd watched my first tennis lesson."Sweetie," she said, "that's what a lot of life is.”

“She said that her father's death had been the hardest thing in her life. "We are all children until our fathers die.”

“I remembered my father's speech about what Jack was capable of and wasn't; he'd said, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW MUCH JACK LOVES YOU. I thought about all the girls he'd stopped loving; it was like he had a timer, and at a certain point it buzzed.”

“I said, "It's not like that." I wanted to convince her. I said "We think alike." Oh, my dear," she said. "A man thinks with his dick.”

“When I could talk, I said, "I don't know what I did wrong."Dena sighed, "You care too much.”

“Later, lying in bed, I wonder if Dena knows about her father. I decide that she probably does, and I imagine how I would feel if I knew that my father was unfaithful to my mother.Then I remember Richard, and I think that marriage might not mean much to Dena. I can't really blame her: She learned about marriage from her parents, just as I did from mine. For all I know, sleeping with Richard is just Dena's way of trying not to be her mother.”

“Well," I said, "I have to go."He said, "Can I call you?"I waited a long time before answering, though not, of course, as long as he'd made me wait. I let him stand there with the question in the air while I took a good long look at him, let him stand there while I stepped to the street and raised my arm for a cab. At exactly that moment, as though dispatched by some god I didn't really believe in anymore - the god of drama or god of perfect things - or maybe by my own fairy god god, a cab came. I got in, and closed the door.”