“She smiled, pulling the photo a little closer, and I wondered if I should ask her, too, the question for my project, get her definition. But as she ran a finger slowly across the faces, identifying each one, it occurred to me that maybe this was her answer. All those names, strung together like beads on a chain. Coming together, splitting apart, but still and always, a family. (page 289) ~Ruby”

“And I will forget her, yes. That which came together will fall apart slowly, but she will forgive my forgetting, just as I forgive her for forgetting me and the Colonel and nothing but herself and her mom in those last moments as she spent as a person.”

“Don’t you like them?” She ran her fingers across the waistband ofher panties.“I’m afraid I can’t appreciate them in such low lighting. You will have to take them off and let me have a better look.” He tried to smile innocently. She rested her hands on her hips and shook her head slowly.“Very well. I will have to do it for you.” He took a step closer to her.”

“That which came together will fall apart imperceptibly slowly, and I will forget, but she will forgive my forgetting, just as I forgave her for forgetting me”

“Ruby shook her head, but she smiled, a look that said she loved this man, loved the life they had made together. They seemed utterly comfortable with one another, like they knew each other all the way through.”

“One night when we were lying under the stars together she pointed to this beaming bright star beside the moon and said wherever she was in the world, whether we were together or apart, that I should remember her with that star because it would always be there-that it was her with me.”