“I couldn't imagine it, living a pristine life in this big Georgian house and everything. It seemed heinous. So I left him. I thought I'd go mad, if I stayed.”

“Nothing is as bad as it seems,' I thought with the last remnants of my dense optimism. It couldn't be. I'd already lost everything once, I'd been ten, and so had countless other people I knew, and they all picked up and kept going. Or they picked up and went in a slightly different direction.”

“My heart wasn't big enough to hold everything I felt, but I couldn't bear the thought of asking him to wait while I caught up.”

“I'd thought I'd live with my wife, but I couldn't find one.”

“I stood on the street, staring up at the most normal-looking house in the world. My house. I'd lived there my entire life. It was home. It was safe.It was haunted.The only other explanation was that I was demented. I couldn't say which I was rooting for.”

“I had forgotten that, and so many things. How could I put everything down on paper? It seemed impossible. No matter what, the majority of life would be left out of this story, this sliver of a version of the life I'd known. But I tried anyway.”