Fiction comes in all shapes and sizes. Secrets,lies,stories. We all tell them. Sometimes,because we hope to entertain. Sometimes,because we need to distract. And sometimes, because we have to.

Parenting is really just a matter of tracking, of hoping your kids do not get so far ahead you can no longer see their next moves.

Like Connor, Alex protected me -and he was the only person I let close enough to do it. Like Connor, Alex could finish my sentences before I did. But unlike Connor, for whom I had ultimately come too late, I was just in time to take care of Alex.

Life was what happened when all the what-if’s didn’t, when what you dreamed or hoped or – in this case – feared might come to pass passed by instead.

I know that the first person I kissed won't be nearly as important as the last person I kiss.

I don't know what you think of me. And you certainly would never picture us together. But probably peanut butter was just peanut butter for a long time, before someone ever thought of pairing it with jelly. And there was salt, but it started to taste better when there was pepper. And what's the point of butter without bread? (Why are all these examples of FOODS?!!?!?!?!?!?!) Anyway by myself I'm nothing special. But with you I could be.

Life, it turns out, goes on. There is no cosmic rule that grants you immunity from the details just because you have come face-to-face with a catastrophe. The garbage can still overflow, the bills arrive in the mail, telemarketers, interrupt dinner.