Quintana of Charyn's body was a map of hatred.

It's not that I like you least [...] it's that I feared you most. The reginita taught me to like you. There was a strange joy to her that lifted my spirits. But you, Quintana of Charyn, you made me love you.

Women are elephants and watch the way you say that in front of them because they'll think you're calling them fat and there's no coming back from that moment. But they hoard. They say they don't, but they do. We think that if something's not spoken about again, it goes away. It doesn't. Nothing goes away just like that.

I'm sick and tired of you people living interstate and overseas from people you want to be with. You're ruining my life! All of you!

A piece of me is gone," she told me once while we were bra shopping. "I think we're made up of all these different pieces and every time someone goes, you're left with less of yourself.

It's too late. Seventeen-year-olds don't need fathers. Oh god. I'm thirty-four years old and I need a father. I can't even begin to think what my daughter needs.

About my first memory, sitting on the shoulders of a giant who I know can only be my father. Of touching the sky. Of lying between two people who read me stories of wild things and journeys with dragons, the soft hum of their voices speaking of love and serenity. See, I remember love.