“Houses don't clean themselves, she'd mutter. Sometimes she cleaned the bits she had just cleaned. It wasn't like living in a house, but more a question hovering over the surfaces.”

“He saw the reflection of her face in a compact mirror as she painted on her re lips. She did it with such care, he had felt she was trapping something behind the colour.She had touched life, played with it a little, bit it was a slippery bugger,and finally we must close the door, and leave it behind.”

“It's your chili dog. Clean it up.""It's your turn to clean.""The house. Not your trash, which you can walk your leatherfaced-ass unto the kitchen to throw away.”

“The regrets about all she had let go flooded her. Where had all that enterprise gone? All that energy? Why had she never traveled? Or had more sex when she could? She had bleached and annihilated every waking moment of the last twenty years. Anything, rather than feel.”

“He had felt safe with what he had confided. It had been the same with Queenie. You could say things in the car and know she had tucked them somewhere safe among her thoughts, and that she would not judge him for them, or hold it against him in years to come. He supposed that was what friendship was, and regretted all the years he had spent without it.”

“Sometimes her words sliced down on his before they had even reached his mouth.”

“After the two drinks, she felt warm inside, and slightly indistinct at the edges.”