Last night it had been my father who had finally said it: "She’s never coming home." A clear and easy piece of truth that everyone who had ever known me had accepted. But he needed to say it, and she needed to hear him say it.

She no longer believed in talk. It never rescued anything.

People grow up by living.

There was one thing my murderer didn't understand; he didn't understand how much a father could love his child.

The damage can fester under layers of time and change, and an ignorant, thoughtless remark can easily reopen the wound.

Murder had a blood red door on the other side of which was everything unimaginable to everyone.

I was trying to prove to them and to myself that I was still who I had always been. I was beautiful, if fat. I was smart, if loud. I was good, if ruined.