Ed?" Ritchie says later. We're still standing in the water. "There's only one thing I want." "What's that, Ritchie?" His answer is simple. "To want.

Something I'd like to be perfect at? ... Loving you,' I said. The words climbed from my mouth. 'I'd want to be perfect at loving you.

She kept watching the words.

Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones. Papa was an accordion! But his bellows were all empty. Nothing went in and nothing came out.

When we move apart, she looks at me again, till a small tear lifts itself up in her eye. It trips out to find a wrinkle and follows it down.

Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness. (p.36)

People die of broken hearts. They have heart attacks. And it's the heart that hurts most when things go wrong and fall apart.