She laughed so easily when she was happy. But also when she was sad.

Who was I, really? I was the sole occupant of my mother's totalitarian state, my own personal history rewritten to fit the story she was telling that day. There were so many missing pieces. I was starting to find some of them, working my way upriver, collecting a secret cache of broken memories in a shoebox.

The night crackled ... Everything had turned to static electricity in the heat. I combed my hair to watch the sparks fly from the ends.

A couple of times, I could have turned a trick. But I didn't want to start. I knew how it would play. When you started thinking it was easy, you were forgetting what it cost.

And I thought, there was no God, there was only what you wanted.

Women always put men first. That's how everything got so screwed up.

I usually start with something that has some energy, like a compressed character or a situation that's wound up like a spring. Then all I have to do is let it go, let its energy carry the story. And that may not turn out to be the beginning of the book.