I mean, if the relationship can't survive the long term, why on earth would it be worth my time and energy for the short term?

Now as he watched Katie toying with a ring that wasn't there, he felt his old investigative instincts kick in. There'd been a husband, he thought; her husband was the missing element. Either she was still married or she wasn't, but he had an undeniable hunch that Katie was still afraid of him.

because the past was always around her and might return at any time. It prowled the world searching for her, and she knew it was growing angrier at every passing day.

It's possible to go on, no matter how impossible it seems, and that in time, the grief . . . lessens. It may not go away completely, but after a while it's not so overwhelming.

Mom says it's because she has PMS. Do you even know what that means? "I'm not a little kid anymore. It means pissed-at- men syndrome

I never know what to tell them. I mean, there's nothing you can say to make a person stop hurting. Half the time, I just feel like telling them the truth. I'd say that for 3 months, you're going to feel worse than you've ever felt and you cope as best you can. And that after 6 months, the pain isn't so bad, but it still hurts more than you think it will. And even after years, you still find yourself thinking about the person you lost and get sad about it. And you still miss them all the time.

You always have a choice. It's just that some people make the wrong one.