But he stays by the window, remembering that life. They had laughed. They had leaned on each other and laughed until the tears had come, while everything else—the cold and where he'd go in it—was outside, for a while anyway.

And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

Get in, get out. Don't linger. Go on.

She won't give him back his look.

That morning she pours Teacher's over my belly and licks it off. That afternoon she tries to jump out the window.

Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.

Booze takes a lot of time and effort if you're going to do a good job with it.