Sara: "You are so brave," I tell her, and then I smile. "When I grow up, I want to be just like you." To my surprise, Kate shakes her head hard. Her voice is a feather, a thread. "No Mommy," she says. "You'd be sick.

The ideas choose me, not the other way around.

I think there are two different oceans - the one that plays with you in the summer, and the one that gets so mad in the winter.

But you could only remake your own future, not anyone else's, and for some people that just wasn't good enough.

you can love a person and still hate the decisions they've made, can't you?

I have no idea what Andrew might have done, and I do not ask. She believes that I can fix this, and like always, that's enough to make me think that I can. "I'll take care of it,: I say, when what I really mean is: I'll take care of you.

My mother moves so fast I do not even see it coming. But she slaps my face hard enough to make my head snap backward. She leaves a print that stains me long after it’s faded. Just so you know: shame is five-fingered.