It was the perfect moment to tell her. This is my last year. But I couldn’t say it. Not yet. I wanted another minute, another hour, another night of pretending this wasn’t the end.

I had risked everything, and I had nothing to show for it but my open hand, lying empty and palm up toward the ceiling.

No, you used nouns and verbs together in a pleasing but illogical format.

I couldn't think of anything to say. I was idiotically entranced by the way he said "Grace." The tone of it. The way his lips formed the vowels. The timbre of his voice stuck in my head like music.

Gift of time in me enclosed the future suddenly exposed

He was not as soft as when I'd first met him, not as young, but the angles of his face, his quick gestures, the way he sucked in his lower lip to think before going on - I was in love with all of it.

You know what I mean. I'm telling you I was stupid over it. I thought it was about trying so hard to survive that you didn't have the time to be a good parent. Obviously, that's not it. Because you and I, we're both...wealthy in love.