“The horror came as I realized that, for what he had done, the child in me was right to blame him entirely, and the adult in me blamed him not at all.”

“And I don’t blame him. I don’t even trust me.”

“All my life they had made choices for me, and I had resented it. Now the choice was mine, and once it was made, I would have no right to blame anyone else for the consequences. Loss of that privilege, to blame others, unexpectedly stung.”

“He wanted to tell her that everything he had done he had done because he was broken, because watching her die had destroyed him, but there was no way to say it that didn’t sound like he was trying to pin the blame outside himself”

“Her heart went out to him with a stronger movement than ever, at the thought that people would blame him. Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed her whole life, and nothing had come of it but evil tempers.”

“I held out my arms to him and he came to me like a child.”