...and so many orchards circled the village that on some crisp October afternoons the whole wold smelled like pie.

Still, she knows one thing for certain: never judge a relationship unless you are the one wrapped up in its arms.

In a world of sorrow, love was an act of will. All you needed were the right ingredients.

If I hadn't learned my lesson, I would have wished we could stay there forever. But I knew better now. We'd seen what we'd come to see. The way to trick death. Breathe in. Breathe out. Watch as it all rises upwards, black and blue into the even bluer sky.

My grief was cold. It was nothing to share. It was nothing to speak about, nothing to feel.

Even as a small child, I understood that woman had secrets, and that some of these were only to be told to daughters. In this way we were bound together for eternity.

That is the joy of reading fiction: when all is said and done, the novel belongs to the reader and his or her imagination.