I told Ing once that she dances like a German and she didn't like it, but it's true: she dances seriously, like lives are hanging in the balance, like precision dancing can save the starving children of India.

He would say her name over and over until it devolved into meaningless sounds - mah REI kuh, mah REI kuh - it became an entry in a dictionary of loneliness.

Outside it's a perfect spring night. We stand on the sidewalk in front of our apartment building, and Henry takes my hand, and I look at him, and I raise our joined hands and Henry twirls me around and soon we're dancing down Belle Plaine Avenue, no music but the sound of cars whoosing by and our own laughter, and the smell of cherry blossoms that fall like snow on the sidewalk as we dance underneath the tress.

I sometimes end up in dangerous situations, and I come back to you broken and messed up, and you worry about me when I'm gone. It's like marrying a policeman.

I love. I have loved. I will love.

Even her name seemed empty, as though it had detached itself from her and was floating untethered in his mind. How am I supposed to live without you? It was not a matter of the body; his body would carry on as usual. The problem was located in the word how: he would live, but without Elspeth the flavour, the manner, the method of living were lost to him. He would have to relearn solitude.

CLARE: The library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I can see is marble.