The moment you make someone promise anything is the same moment you ask them to lie to you.

She would sit with picture books in her little lap before she even knew how to read, studying the writing as though all the mystery and wonder of the world were contained in the strange, indecipherable symbols.

Betty had forgotten how you only get slivers of stories from children - usually what they echo from overheard adult conversations.

whatever beauty she thought she might have possessed she realized had only been through her husband's assessment of her

Your heart doesn't think. Your heart is stupid. It doesn't consider the relativity of tragedy when it breaks.

When it happens to you, you will be surprised. That thing they say about how you knew all the time but just weren't facing it? That might be the case, but nevertheless, there you will be. You will feel like you have been kicked in the stomach, that your insides have just separated to make room for something big.

The only thing equal to the enormity of his want was his regret.