“Well . . . sure good to be together again. Arguing. Almost dying. Abject terror. Oh, look. It's our floor.”

“Grover cradeled his laurel sapling in his hands. "Well . . . sure is good to be back together again. Arguing. Almost dying. Abject terror. Oh, look It's our floor”

“Almost sure wasn't good enough. Almost sure, in my experience, is the shortest road to oh fuck.”

“We’ll be back,” he said. I had to admire how well he controlled the abject terror in his heart. “I’ll be waiting,” Grandmother replied.”

“Sure, cried the tenant men, but it's our land. We measured it and broke it up. We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's no good, it's still ours. That's what makes it ours-being born on it, working it, dying on it.”

“Lie there panning, looking, all ribs and elbows and dilated eyes. The awake floor is littered with gear and dirty clothes, blond hardwood with sealed seams, two throw-rugs, the bare waxed wood shiny in the windows' snowlight, the floor neutral, faceless, you cannot see any face in the floor, awake, lying there, faceless, blank, dilated, playing beam over floor again and again, not sure all night forever unsure you're not missing something that's right there: you lie there, awake and almost twelve, believing with all your might.”