“He would read up on parenting, if he thought it would help, but his errors always seemed too basic for the manuals. "Always tell your kids they have siblings..." He couldn't imagine any child-raising guru taking the trouble to write that down. Maybe there was a gap in the market.”

“His brothers could tease him about his height or the number of scars he was collecting on his body. He could take the joke when they said he would die having never won a fair wrestling match. But the topic of Bettin still smarted too much. He'd imagined being with her always. Now when he closed his eyes, he had trouble imagining anything else.”

“I couldn't make my pencil scratch out the lines of Britni/Brenna's face. Couldn't make it curve into the contours of Dad's guilty eyes -- his big secret blown up. Would he marry her? Would they have children together? I couldn't make myself imagine Dad holding some creamy-faced baby, cooing down at it, telling it he loved it. Taking it to baseball games. Living some life he'd probably consider his "real life," the one he deserved rather than the one he got.”

“Extending his senses, Lorkin tried again to hear his mother’s surface thoughts. What he picked up seemed too out of character, however. He must be imagining it. Though…it was also odd that he would imagine his mother thinking such a string of curse words.”

“I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be one of so many, to have not just parents and siblings but cousins and aunts and uncles, an entire tribe to claim as your own. Maybe you would feel lost in the crowd. Or sheltered by it. Whatever the case, one things was for sure: like it or not, you'd never be alone.”

“He wondered if his own child would like tohave a dog, then shook off the thought. He was yearsaway from having a child. He needed a wife first—andobtaining her would be far more trouble than obtaininga mistress. Here, he had yet to get a mistress.”