“I pulled out my bag and examined my mother's picture. I wondered what it had been like to be inside her, just a curl of flesh swimming in her darkness, the quiet things that had passed between us.”

“I wondered what it was like to be inside her, just a curl of flesh swimming in the darkness, the quiet things that had passed between us.”

“I wonder if I wouldn't have been more moved if my own mother had taken me in her arms and said, 'I like you'. I wonder if just enjoying your kids company isn't more important.”

“And some small gnarled place inside me hated her for her weakness, for her neglect, for the months she had put us through. I had taken a step back from my mother, put up a wall to protect myself from needing her, and nothing was ever the same between us again.”

“I couldn't tell what colour her eyes were. They were wet and dark and shining, like pools of deep, still water. For a second I thought I could see pictures in them, like I was looking right inside her to where her memories were. She smiled, and I wondered if she knew what I'd seen or if she could see the pictures I kept hidden inside myself.”

“I lifted my hand and pulled the blue paper cap back a little, until a piece of my red fell out, then I reached my hand back inside the case. I slid my finger under some tubes and into her tiny purple hand. And just like that, like she had known it was me all along, she squeezed it.”