“Perhaps she would learn in time to permit both her daughter and her gods to govern their own affairs.”

“Over time, we would learn each other and I would learn to love her like a mother loves a daughter, imperfectly and without roots.”

“Perhaps they assumed that he would have a hard time putting her first. Perhaps they had not understood that for a long time she had come first with him, that for many years she had been his heart's home and his mind's anchor and that fighting to keep her alive was essential to preserving his own soul.”

“Hannah thought back to her first time with Aidan, remembering how utterly certain she'd felt then, how confident that she was carrying out God's will. This feeling was entirely different. She had only her own volition to follow, her own desire to act upon, or not. Whatever decision she made would be hers alone.”

“This time her heart would not break, even though it would hurt and hurt for a long time to come. Perhaps for the rest of her life. But it would not break. She had the strength to go on alone.”

“Perhaps her only legacy would be that she had known something immortal, and while eternity may still belong to God alone, not all things were enslaved by time.”