Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand.

To pretend to be calm is to be calm, in a way.

The question I've asked more often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I supposed these questions storm cloud over every marriage: What are you thinking how are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?

Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed.

Safer to be feared than loved.

To spend a life in dreams, that sounded too lovely.

Worries find you easily enough without inviting them.