“I wish I could be whole for you…I wish I could hold you and dance with you, take you in my arms and make love to you the way I want to. (Adron)And I’m just grateful I have you at all. It’s not your body or face that I love, Adron. It’s your heart, your soul, and your mind. (Livia)”

“I know you were just trying to help. But I passed the point of help a long time ago. Look, I know about your people and customs, and I know you were raised inside a cage. The last thing you need is to be saddled with a man who can barely walk. Why don’t you just go and get your own place and live? I’ll be happy to put you on all my accounts. You’ll never want for anything. (Adron)I can’t do that. (Livia)Why not? (Adron)Because I love you. (Livia)”

“What are you thinking about? (Livia)I’m thinking how glad I am that I traded myself for that woman. How glad I am that my brother couldn’t kill me. But most of all, I’m thinking just how damn grateful I am that you saw something in me worth saving. Thank you for my son, Livia, and for my life. I love you. I always will. (Adron)”

“And what am I? (Adron)You’re kind and decent. You have a good heart. (Livia)I have no heart at all. What I have is a mechanical substitute that pumps blood through a broken body, and half the time it malfunctions. (Adron)”

“Hey, sweet. Please open your eyes, Livia. Open your eyes and see what you did. I’m actually sitting here without grimacing. There’s no pain at all. But you know that, don’t you? I don’t know why you stayed with me. God knows, I wasn’t worth it. But I don’t want you to leave me alone anymore. I need you, Livia. I can’t live without you in my life. I can’t…I’m not that strong. Please open your eyes and look at me. Please. (Adron)”

“So I thought your mother and sister might have some insights to share. After all, your mother had five kids and– (Livia)Stop! I don’t even want to think about my mother having sex with my father. I know for a fact that she was artificially inseminated and he never touched her. Grandpa Zamir told me so and I believe him. (Adron)That’s not what she says. (Livia)Am I not in enough pain that you’d torture me with this shit on top of it? What did I ever do to you to make you want to kill me? (Adron)”

“You want to know what I’m afraid of? I’m afraid of every morning when I wake up that this will be the day when I can no longer move for myself. I know it’s coming. It’s just a matter of time until I have no choice, except to have someone else clothe me, feed me. Change my diaper. And I can’t stand it. (Adron)Then why don’t you kill yourself? Why are you still here? (Livia)Because every time I think of doing that, I can hear my family praying over me while I was in the hospital. I hear my mother weeping, my father begging me not to die on them. I could never intentionally hurt them that way. It would devastate them both, and while I’m a pathetic asshole, I’m not that selfish. (Adron)”