Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.

After everything he'd built, planned, fought for, fretted over, dreamed of, this was the summation of his life; one disappointing son and two suitcases.

I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.

Her eyes, walnut brown and shaded by fanned lashes, met mine. Held for a moment. Flew away.

Your job today is to pass gas. You do that and we can start feeding you liquids. No fart, no food.

She lived in fear of his shifting moods, his volatile temperament, his insistence on steering even mundane exchanges down a confrontational path that, on occasion, he would resolve with punches, slaps, kicks, and sometimes try to make amends for with polluted apologies, and sometimes not.

All my life, I'd been around men. That night, I discovered the tenderness of a woman.