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

But you make me happy. It's living up to being happy that's the difficult part.

I sit quietly and think about my mom. It's funny how memory erodes, If all I had to work from were my childhood memories, my knowledge of my mother would be faded and soft, with a few sharp memories standing out.

The engagement ring is an emerald, and the dim light from the window is refracted green and white in it. The rings are silver, and they need cleaning. They need wearing, and I know just the girl to wear them.

He had never realized, while Elspeth was alive, the extent to which a thing had not completely happened until he told her about it.

‎I never wanted to have anything in my life that I couldn't stand losing. But it's too late for that.

It comes out so quietly that I have to ask her to repeat it: “It’s just that I thought maybe you were married to me.