Prayers and promises. The one his sister made to him. The unspoken one I made to my sister. Prayers are promises, too, and these are the days of broken promises.

We’re here, and then we’re gone, and it’s not about the time we’re here, but what we do with the time.

When you look death in the eye and death blinks first, nothing seems impossible.

Yes, my dear child, monsters are real. I happen to have one hanging in my basement.

I brought Sammy inside and put him to bed. Said his prayer with him. “‘Now I lay me down to sleep…’” To me, just random noise. Gibberish. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but I felt that, when it came to God, there was a broken promise in there somewhere.

When I woke up in you, Cassie. I wasn't fully human until I saw myself in your eyes." And then there are real human tears in his real human eyes, and it's my turn to hold him while his heart breaks. My turn to see myself in his eyes.

Perhaps that is our doom, our human curse, to never really know one another.