I hope we'll get lucky enough to grow old together.

A week passes but it feels as if he's never been anywhere else. It's one of the things war does to you. Everything you see works to replace moments and people from your life before, until you can't remember why any of it mattered. It doesn't help if you're a soldier. The effect is the same.

It gave me a sharp kind of sadness to think that no matter how much I loved him and tried to put him back together again, he might stay broken forever.

I knew that I could hate him all I wanted for the way he was hurting me, but I couldn’t ever stop loving him, absolutely, for what he was.

There was only today to throw yourself into without thinking about tomorrow, let alone forever. To keep you from thinking, there was liquor, an ocean's worth at least, all the usual vices and plenty of rope to hang yourself with. Love is a beautiful liar.

But when Bumby nursed, his fist clutching the fabric of my robe, his eyes soft and bottomless and locked on mine, as if I were the very heart of his universe, I couldn't help but melt into him.

At twenty-eight I'd had a handful of beaux, but had only been in love once, and that had been awful enough to make me doubt men and myself for a good long while.