“If I closed my eyes as you were talking, it was like I was there, like your stories were my stories. In many ways, I feel as if I have memories of you there, too. ”

“I liked just being with you. I liked the way you breathed when you were asleep. I liked when you took the champagne glass from my hand. I liked how your fingers were always too long for your gloves.”

“The memory came faint and cold of the story I might have told, a story in the likeness of my life, I mean without the courage to end or the strength to go on.”

“When I was younger all kinds of people talked to me,” shesaid. “Told me all sorts of things. Fascinating stories, beautiful,strange stories. But past a certain point nobody talked to meany more. No one. Not my husband, my child, my friends …no one. Like there was nothing left in the world to talk about.Sometimes I feel like my body’s turning invisible, like you cansee right through me.”

“Her body was rounded like earth. Stories. Breath. . . . Her eyes have been painted closed. I understand. To tell a story you must travel inward.”

“Its important to know stories. I felt the earth shift to make a place for you when you were born, and I came to tell you stories while you are young. And like me, you were born with a word on your tongue.”