“There is silence and then the familiar smack of Beatrice Muriels palm against her forehead. A love marriage, she says. In her opinion, love marriages border on the indecent. They signify a breakdow...”

“She talks in her most sedate voice, attempting to alleviate out fears, soothe our anxiety. She knows that if we are to survive watching this war from a distance, as spectators, we do not have the p...”

“In these myriad ways, we carved out our lives in Los Angeles. Yet falling asleep was often an act of travel, taking me quickly by the hand so that I am instantly surrounded by verdant foliage, the ...”

“We play hide-and-seek, wade into her ponds to fill jam jars with writhing tadpoles, and cavort with her pack of dogs, named Brandy, Whiskey, Lager, so that just calling the pack makes one feel ligh...”

“Those less fortunate eat dried fish while the truly destitute fight with the spiny shells of crabs or lobsters. Decades later, my father will find it incomprehensible that Americans crave what in h...”

“Farther out beyond the reef, where the coral gives way to the true deep, at a certain time of day a tribe of flat silver fish gather in their thousands. To be there is to be surrounded by living sh...”

“The heart was made to be broken.”

“He does something to me, that boy. Every time. Its his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.”

“Was it hard?" I ask.Letting go?"Not as hard as holding on to something that wasn't real.”