After a lifetime of nods, frowns and stoic smiles, they were both fluent in emotional shorthand.

Henry was learning that time apart has a way of creating distance- more than mountains and time zone separating them. Real distance, the kind that makes you ache and stop wondering. Longing so bad that it begins to hurt to care so much.

The hardest choices in life aren't between what's right and what's wrong but between what's right and what's best.

I try not to live in the past...but...sometimes the past lives in me

A young nurse, someone new whom he didn't recognise, came up to Henry and patted him on the arm. "Are you a friend or a family member?" She whispered the question in his ear, trying not to disturb Sheldon. The question hung there like a beautiful chord, ringing in the air. Henry was Chinese, Sheldon obviously wasn't. They looked nothing alike. Nothing at all. "I'm distant family," Henry said.

I think I get it now. It doesn't matter how nice home is--it just matters that it feels like home.

He'd learned long ago: perfection isn't what families are all about.