“She was thinking what I think she was thinking, wasn't she?”

“I think she's having hysterics. Maybe you should slap her.”

“Do you want to forget about Sam?''I think I do.'I sighed. She was in a healthier place than I was.”

“His expression was composed; there was only the slightest hardening of his topaz eyes. 'She's been seeing Jasper in a strange place, she thinks, near his former. . .family. But he has no conscious intentions to go back.' He sighed. 'It's got her worried.”

“I couldn't help but think of my mother's most life-altering mistake. Silly and romantic, getting married fresh out of high school to a man she barely knew, then producing me a year later. She'd always promised me that she had no regrets, that I was the best gift hr life had ever given her.”

“She wasn't speaking to me - in the juvenile, petty sense of the phrase.”

“I don’t care about anything but keeping her alive. If it’s a child she wants, she can have it. She can have half a dozen babies. Anything she wants. She can have puppies, if that’s what it takes.”