Sometimes you simply made the wrong choice and you had to live with it. You could only change the future.

The at-home mother's life: it was a race with no finish line.

Alice started to cry. It came with no sound, no shuddering, no childlike hysterics, just a soul-deep release that turned into moisture and dripped down her puffy pink cheeks. She touched her tears, frowning. Then she looked up at Julia and whimpered two words before she fell asleep. ‘Real hurts.’

Then he left her there, standing alone, surrounded by word ghosts; things she could have said.

I guess no one stays friends for more than thirty years without broken hearts along the way.

Jude remembered this pain. Every woman had felt some version of it: the end of first love. It was when you learned, for good and always, that love could be impermanent.

It's not intentions that matter. It's actions. We are what we do and say, not what we intend to.