I felt the crumpled paper that had taken the place of my lungs expand as if released from a fist.

I was with them for all of it, but more like an echo than a participant.

My eyelids are my own private cave, he murmured. That I can go to anytime I want.

I peeled the skin off a grape in slippery little triangles, and I understood then that I would be undressing every item of food I could because my clothes would be staying on.

I watched as she added a question mark at the end. Arc, line, space, dot.

I like birthday cake. It's so symbolic. It's a tempting symbol to load with something more complicated than just 'Happy birthday!' because it's this emblem of childhood and a happy day.

Sometimes, she said, mostly to herself, I feel I do not know my children... It was a fleeting statement, one I didn't think she'd hold on to; after all, she had birthed us alone, diapered and fed us, helped us with homework, kissed and hugged us, poured her love into us. That she might not actually know us seemed the humblest thing a mother could admit.