In the tee-vee programs, males who saved the lives of females were frequently rewarded with adoration and affection. The tee-vee misrepresented many things.

Think, not of what you win or lose, but of what you learn and what you teach, and you will always have the advantage.

The sky was full of fog, with the sun behind it turning it all to a single color – not quite white, but pale and promising, like a blank page where anything could be written. Anything at all.

He told her not to speak or look at him. He told her not to try to kiss him. He told her she was beautiful. Then he lay her down and lay beside her and he said nothing more.

Don’t make fun of me,” Lan snapped. “I’m illiterate, not stupid! I know there’s no B in subtle!

Strange, how the world could move on even when it had been shaken to its foundations.

If you cannot have an easy journey, have an interesting story.

You’re alive, Lan,” he said. “You’re not ‘his’ anything.

Father, forgive me,” he thought, staring into the sky where the light of the sun stared back at him behind the clouds. “Truth does not care if it comforts her. But I do.

She’d become her own ghost, haunting her own life.