“I'm numb and I'm tired. Too much has happened today. I feel as if I'd been out in a pounding rain for forty-eight hours without an umbrella or a coat. I'm soaked to the skin with emotion.”

“He was blaming her for being sick, and she kept repeating, 'I'm forty, do you hear? I'm forty and I've been through enough. I'm forty, it was too much.”

“I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't.”

“Please. Alex, i'm begging you...forty-eight hours? Tell me you'll stay.”

“You're in a rather odd mood today."I'm soaking wet, Eloise."No need to snap at me about it, I didn't force you to walk across town in the rain."It wasn't raining when I left,". There was something about a sibling that brought out the eight-year-old in a body.I'm sure the sky was gray," Clearly, she had a bit of the eight-year-old in her as well.”

“I'm too careless. I don't put out enough effort. I'm tired.”