Fifteen minutes later, Betsy came thundering down the stairs. "I'm going to the mall with Sierra to see a movie." Michael leaned forward, switched off the television. "Can you please rephrase that in the form of a question?" "Sure. Can I have some money?

Whenever I write about motherhood - and I write about it a lot - I am drawing on my experiences as a mother and also my experiences as a daughter.

It is a kiss that, once begun, never really ends. Interrupted, yes. Paused, certainly. But from that very moment onward, Vera sees the whole of her life as only a breath away from kissing him again. On that night in the park, they begin the delicate task of binding their souls together, creating a whole comprising their separate halves.

One thing I can tell you for sure is this: we only regret what we don't do in life.

At one point, she'd wanted to hurl the whole breakfast at the wall. And then she'd remember why it was that men had temper tantrums and women didn't: cleanup.

She used to tell me that she couldn't feel the sunlight anymore, not even when she was standing in it, not even when it was hot on her cheeks

....both had learned that everything could change in an instant, and that the heartfelt vows of people in love were fragile words that, once shattered, could cut so deeply you'd bleed forever.