“Lev looks at Risa, almost afraid to ask the obvious question. Finally he says, 'Uh...why do we have a baby?''Ask him,' says Risa.Stone-faced, Conner looks out of the window. 'They're looking for two boys and a girl. Having a baby will throw them off.''Great,' snaps Risa. 'Maybe we should all pick up a baby along the way.”

“Look, if you wanted to be babied you should have asked Peeta.”

“Fuck,” he muttered.…“Language in front of the girls,” I snapped.“Baby, they hear it all the time,” he returned and I felt my eyes get wide in motherly affront. Cal looked at my face then over the seat to the girls and asked, “You gonna say fuck because I say fuck?”“No,” Kate answered immediately.“No, ‘cause Mom doesn’t like it,” Keira replied waspishly. Cal looked back at me and raised his brows.”

“If the Old Man said something was so, then it probably was, because he was one of these cautious babies who'll look out the window at a cloudburst and say, "It seems to be raining," on the off-chance that somebody's pouring water off the roof.”

“But when I look at him, his face is surprised, like it should be obvious. "Now," he says, "we figure it out together.”

“There are legions of us, I realized. The mothers who have broken babies, and spend the rest of our lives wondering if we should have spared them. And the mothers who have let their broken babies go, who look at our children and see instead the faces of the ones they never met.”