Stories don't like to end when you want them to, do they? Loose ends aren't easy to snip with scissors or tuck inside a hem. They tempt you. They want you to keep pulling until there is nothing left to keep you warm.

It was possible to rush forward, looking back, and break your neck.

It's not always wise to assume that just because the surface of the world appears undisturbed, life is where you left it.

Not a day or an hour and sometimes not even a moment in advance did I have any idea what Patrick had in mind for me, or whether he had me in mind at all. This uncertainty lay like a sore under the surface of my skin, erupting again and again, then subsiding, but never healing.

He had a strange way of talking, his head tucked into his neck and his eyes fixed in the empty space beyond, as if something were suspended there, ripe fruit or a glimmer of light, as if he were not quite brave enough, or perhaps too polite, to look a person in the eye.

People say a mother is only as happy as her least happy child. But what if the state of that child's happiness has become a mystery? What if that child is no longer a child but a young man who has removed himself to a great distance and encased himself in silence?

We are only flesh and blood. We are only chemicals mixing and circuits firing, sometimes in disarray. We are, every last one of us, plagued by useless want.