Cleaning up after themselves was a low priority for Margo and my mother. They had both recovered from cancer scares, failed marriages, and lost hope; in their opinion, dirt could wait.

It wasn't right to have someone charge into you your world without even asking, acting as if you were nothing more than an egg to be flipped and flopped, sunny-side up or scrambled, depending on the whims on whoever ran your life..._

She knows where she's going, and what she has to do. She could, after all, find her way to Route 95 South blindfolded. She could do it in the dark, in fair weather or foul; she can do it even when it seems she will run out of gas. It doesn't matter what people tell you. It doesn't matter what they might say. Sometimes you have to leave home. Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.

People hide their truest nature. I understood that; I even applauded it. What sort of world would it be if people bled all over the sidewalks, if they wept under trees, smacked whomever they despised, kissed strangers, revealed themselves?

Margaret thought of all she knew for certain, that day would always follow night that love was never wasted nor was it lost.

I never even believed in happiness. I didn't think it existed. Now look at me. I'm ready to believe in just about anything.

That's why there are ten gates to pass through before you reach the garden. If life were easy there would be one gate. There would be no gates at all.