“I wondered how anyone could have been so sure about a concept so tenuous and impossible as always that they'd be willing to carve it into a tabletop.”

“I looked away from his direct gaze and down at the scratched surface of the table. Someone had etched into it RYAN LOVES MEGAN ALWAYS...I wondered who Ryan and Megan were. And if, wherever they were, they'd made it. I wondered how anyone could have been so sure about a concept so tenuous and impossible as 'always' that they'd be willing to carve it into a tabletop.”

“It was a heavy piece, about thirty inches in height, carved of stone. And so ugly that it defied description. Surely only a blind person could have carved it.Maybe carving it was what made the person blind.”

“Never has anyone been so willing to be ruined as you were.”

“I thought how tenuous the links were between mother and children between friends family things you think are eternal. Everything could be lost more easily than anyone could imagine.”

“We'd been apart so long--I'd been dead so long," she said in English. "I thought surely you'd built a new life, with no room in it for me. I'd hoped that.""My life is nothing but room for you." I said. "It could never be filled by anyone but you.”