“Was the feeling that all is right with the world, my world, because your were its foundations, formed in childhood and with me grown into adulthod -- was that to replaced by nothing? The ghastliness of nothing. Because I was nobody's sister now.”

“The gastliness of nothing. Because I was nobody's sister now.”

“Because I'd rather feel guilty for the rest of my life than for her to have felt a second's fear.”

“Because you are my sister in every fiber of my being....but there are aother strands that link us, that wouldn't be seen by even the strongest electron microscope.......We are conjoined by hundreds os thousands of memories that silt down into you and stop being memories and become a part of who you are.”

“...death does leave a daunting array of practical tasks: all those possessions that you were forced to leave behind had to be sorted and packed and redistributed in the living world.”

“And I felt closer to you. Because you knew me so much better than I'd realized - and still loved me.”

“When someone dies they can be any age you remember can't they ' she asked. As I tried to think of a reply she continued 'You probably think about the grown-up Tess because you were still close to her. But when I woke up I thought of her when she was three wearing a fairy skirt I'd got her in the Woolworth's and a policeman's helmet. Her wand was a wooden spoon. On the bus yesterday I imagined holding her when she was two days old. I felt the warmth of her. I remembered all her fingers clasped around my finger so tiny they didn't even meet. I remembered the shape of her head and stroking the nape of her neck till she slept. I remembered her smell. She smelled of innocence. Other times she's thirteen and so pretty that I worry for her everytime I see a man look at her. All of those Tesses is my daughter.”