It is a kiss that, once begun, never really ends. Interrupted, yes. Paused, certainly. But from that very moment onward, Vera sees the whole of her life as only a breath away from kissing him again. On that night in the park, they begin the delicate task of binding their souls together, creating a whole comprising their separate halves.

Memories are who we are, Tul. In the end, that’s all the luggage you take with you. Love and memories are what last.

People left, and if you loved too deeply, too fiercely, their swift and sudden absence could chill you to the soul.

The children's lives would never be the same after today. Their opinions of everything would change, but especially their opinions of themselves, of the durability of love and the truth of their family. They would know forever that their father hadn't loved their mother--or them--enough to stay with them through hard times.

My skin has the crinkled appearance of wax paper that someone has tried to flatten and reuse. My eyes fail me often—in the darkness, when headlights flash, when rain falls. It is unnerving, this new unreliability in my vision. Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.

Passion is a thunderstorm, there and gone. It nourishes, si, but it drowns, too.

You look great," he said.It made her smile, even if it was a lie. "I'm as big as a house."He laughed. "I like houses. In fact, I'm thinking about architecture as a career.

I've never begged. not for anything... except my mother's love.And that was a useless waste of time.

She had tried to be loved by him; more important, she had tried to keep loving him, but in the end, one was impossible as the other.