Once, I had to drive Oliver to soccer, was ten minutes late, and learned that there had apparently been a misprint in the Bible on the Ten Commandments thing: Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not be late to soccer. My father was so pissed, I practically had to get the lightning bolt surgically removed from my back.

Just because it turned out bad, doesn’t mean it wasn’t meant.

You … You had always made the future feel safe. As long as you were in it too, beside me, I could be okay.

To an untrained eye, need and love were as easily mistaken for each other as the real master's painting and a forgery.

I wondered if parents had an easier time with the secrets their children kept than children did with the secrets of their parents. A parent's secrets seemed like some sort of betrayal, where my own just seemed like a fact of life and growing up and away. I was supposed to be independent, but he was supposed to be available. Him having his own life seemed selfish, where me having my own was the right order of things.

It was all the things you could never understand and could never possess that made you ache.

Sometimes good choices are really bad ones, wrapped up in so much fear you can't even see straight.