I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.

I'm sorry. I didn't know you were coming or I'd have cleaned up a little more. My life, I mean, not just the apartment.

I guess no matter what your family is like, you're not surprised.

The pain has left but I know that it has not gone far, that it is sulking somewhere in a corner or under the bed and it will jump out when I least expect it.

...all of our laments could not add a single second to her life, not one additional beat of the heart, nor a breath.

There was only the cemetery itself, spread out in the moonlight like a soft grey hallucination, a stony wilderness of Victorian melancholy.

What we need,' Henry says, 'is a fresh start. A blank slate. Let's call her Tabula Rasa.