A tree is such a rich metaphor in a million beautiful ways. You can consider a tree growing and consider its connectedness to all things above and under the ground.

I told him, though, that he better be good to you. When you came along, I said I'd share you, but I told him to remember that you're my sister. I loved you first.

The bottom had arrived. She crashed against it, but it brought no sense of closure or understanding. She just lay there at the bottom looking up. She knew there must be a very tiny circle of light up there somewhere, but just now she couldn’t see it.

One must have a good memory to keep the promises one has made.

It was a blessing and also a curse of handwritten letters that unlike email you couldn’t obsessively reread what you’d written after you’d sent it. You couldn’t attempt to un-send it. Once you’d sent it it was gone. It was an object that no longer belonged to you but belonged to your recipient to do with what he would. You tended to remember the feeling of what you’d said more than the words. You gave to object away and left yourself with the memory. That was what it was to give.

Shy” was the sympathetic interpretation she got from older people. “Snotty” was the interpretation she got from people her own age.

She had never had a boy talk to her like that. There was no cover of bullshit, no flirtation, no added charm, but his look was searing. He was different from anyone she had known.