Once upon a time there were two parents, two children, and a brick house with lilies in the yard. The parents died, the lilies wilted. One child disappeared. Then the other." Pg 225

We were his disposable things. Brought to him like cattle. Stripped of what made us sisters or daughters or children. There was nothing that he could take from us—our genes, our bones, our wombs—that would ever satisfy him. There was no other way that we would be free.

You can't be afraid. You can be sad if you like. You can be angry. But it's the fear that'll freeze you in place.

The madness of youth made me unafraid.

I should not have loved my daughter as I did. Not in this world in which nothing lives for long. You children are flies. You are roses. You multiply and die.

I shake my head, watching snow tumble and swirl from an all-white sky. The world seems so clean if you only look up

I watch the ashes swim around like dandelion puffs, making swirls where bodies and walls once stood.