“She once told me how she could feel the missing part of her arm- how she sometimes experienced the sensation of a hand- that it is possible to feel something without its physical presence.Perhaps love is like this and we are all limbs of one giant intangible body.”

“She once told me that she loved me because I was the only thing she could hear. She can feel the vibration of the strings through the carved vessel of her instrument, but I am inside her. I am a song soaked into each bone of her secret body where the world has not been able to wander.”

“She told me that while my father’s body might be crushed under tons of black earth, the body is nothing but camouflage. She whispered that every soul is a river trying to find its way back to the sea.”

“That night she admitted her compulsion to escape. She was worried that if my father drowned, or I disappeared, she would be left with nothing. By running away at least she would have the joy of knowing she was missed.”

“It's tempting to imagine how we could hurt someone close, because it reminds us how fiercely we love them.”

“My old geography professor once told his class how the music, paintings, sculptures, and books of the world are mirror in which people see versions of themselves.”

“In that moment of recognition he is not consumed by a rushing sensation of love-quite simply a door opens to a room that has never gone away. The years apart were just years without one another.”