You must learn to know the difference between tales and the truth, my Liza, she would say. Fairy tales have a habit of ending too soon. They never show what happens afterwards when the prince and princess ride off the page.

It was the sibling thing, I suppose. I was fascinated by the intricate tangle of love and duty and resentment that tied them together. The glances they exchanged; the complicated balance of power established over decades; the games I would never play with rules I would never fully understand. And perhaps that was key: they were such a natural group that they made me feel remarkably singular by comparison. To watch them together was to know strongly, painfully, all that I'd been missing.

---All that matters to me are people and experience. Connections - that's the thing. That flicker of electricity between people, the invisible tie.

To abandon a child, she had once said to someone, when she thought Cassandra couldn't hear, was an act so cold, so careless, it refused forgiveness.

Quickly and quietly, the Princess returned to the cottage, for she knew what she must do. The crone had sacrificed her eyes to provide the Princess with shelter and now must this kindness be repaid. Although she had never traveled beyond the forest rim, the Princess did not hesitate. Her love for the crone was so fathomless that if all the grains of sand in the ocean should be stacked up end to end, they would not run so deep.

She wanted you to move forward without regrets, not to deny the past entirely.

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

Sadie felt a swell of emotion. That was love right there, wasn't it? Someone in your life who cared that your next meal was coming to you.

It's special, grandparents and grandchldren. So much simpler. Is it always so, I wonder? I think perhaps it is. While one's child takes a part of one's heart to use and misuse as they please, a grandchild is different. Gone are the bonds of guilt and responsibility that burden the maternal relationship. The way to love is free.