Mamie told me living rooms were once known as death rooms, back when funerals were a home matter. After mortuaries came into fashion, there was no need for keeping bodies on ice at home, and the death room was rechristened the living room.

Sometimes you gotta face danger to find what you’re looking for.

Love and sorrow were similar, in that both ripped you wide open and left you without skin.

But asking for help means inviting others in, and there’s a right good fear of letting in too much. When you let people in, something in you lets out.

Acorns came from oaks, trees that were sturdy and hard to break. They didn't have to grow in a grove and did fine all alone.

My tongue, swollen with venom, hadn't said the right things.

Sí. You don't stop loving a person because they have secrets. You make their secrets your own.

The woods were muted, no crackles of unseen squirrels or deer moving between trees. Even the birds hushed. Perhaps in mourning for the girl who used to dance here.

We held each other in mutual sadness, in changes that came too fast.

Wanting to forget that terrible things happened don't change the past. The past makes you. It'll break you if you let it, and Lord have mercy on broken souls.