“Hurting someone for their own good is easier than she thought it might be.”

“There he is, laying on his side facing the street with his pants around his ankles, his hiney shining like a pale moon.”

“I’m at a place in my life where anything can seem like a metaphor, where a clingy shower curtain can represent death.”

“He said this as he stumbled around their single-room apartment, kicking at the loosened leg of the bamboo chair, slapping her mother when she tried to take away his bottle. “

“Slipping around the woman, who smiles at unconscious Caleb, Daddy Sami spends a minute in front of Frank (No. 7). Massive man, massive cigar, massive leather coat.”

“Recently, I’d begun to notice that my actions were only sometimes my own. Other times, they belonged to a familiar stranger whose life I’d been consigned to follow.”