Why does she have wings?' So she can fly.

So it just wasn't in my house. Anywhere, I looked like I knew about the toilet.

Why don't you ever wait a second and see what I'm planning, or thinking, before you burst in with your opinions and ideas? You never even give me a chance.

It's always very pure, that last moment before an ugly, unsettling truth hits someone. The most stark of before-and-afters.

You want to take me to a movie?" I asked. "Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I thought saying that might scare you off.

But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized they sometimes weren't what people wanted to hear.

It's not forever', she'd said, but to my mother, it might as well have been. She had make her choice, and this was it, where she felt safe, in a world she could, for the most part, control.