That's why we read fiction, isn't it? To remind us that whatever we suffer, we're not the only ones?

My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn't a social construct but an instinct.

I never lose sight of the fact that before I was a writer, I was a teacher. I still am. My classroom's just gotten a little bigger.

But love wasn't about sacrifice, and it wasn't about falling short of someone's expectations. By definition, love made you better than good enough; it redefined perfection to include your traits, instead of excluding them. All any of us wanted, really, was to know that we counted. That someone else's life would not have been as rich without us here.

Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart, and say, "Great. Maybe you can do a better job." Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast. Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.

So much of the language of love was like that: you devoured someone with your eyes, you drank in the sight of him, you swallowed him whole. Love was substance, broken down and beating through your bloodstream.

Me, I was already jaded and tarnished, skeptical that a fantasy world could keep reality at bay.