Anybody can become a widow. There aren't any special qualifications. It happens in less time than it takes to draw a breath. It doesn't require the planning, for example, that it takes to become a wife or a mother or any of the other ritual roles of womanhood.

Feelings change fast when you're a teenager.

Here is how it is for women. We become our schedules. That starts to feel good. Then it starts to feel necessary. Then it starts to feel like everything.

Nothing better for the hormones and worse for the heart than the right boy at the right time.

Being wanted is the tender heel of everything human.

Cats regard people as warm-blooded furniture.

Anybody can become a widow. There aren't any special qualifications. It happens in less time than it takes to draw a breath. It doesn't require the planning, for example, that it takes to become a wife or a mother or any of the other ritual roles of womanhood.