You have to digest life. You have to chew it up and love it all through.

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

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.

Maybe no one can know how it is for anyone else.

I'd had my share of rain. My mother's illness ... had weighed on me, but the years before had been heavy, too. I was only twenty eight.

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.

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.