“What’s it like, having two minds in one body?”

“One spring, the tree—their oak tree—developed a strange rash.”

“Military folks the world over will tell you theirs is not a business of violence…That’s a lie.”

Then the space between us got bigger. The first time I noticed he’d been detaching, I saw an opened tube of toothpaste in the first floor bathroom.

"Pearl had grown up knowing and not knowing her mother. It happened sometimes: a child raised by an aunt, by grandparents. The mother hovering at the borders of their lives."

"Friendship affords certitude above all, and that is what distinguishes it from love."