"It was early spring in Paris and our yearlong efforts to get pregnant had failed. The fertility clinic tested Connall and the problem wasn't his sperm, so that left me to measure my basal temperature, take pills, inject myself, explore homeopathic cures."
"Willa spent a restless hour walking around the empty third floor trying to choose a room for her office."
"In the matter of offering prayers, Kali and Ponna left no stone unturned. They did not discriminate between small and big temples. They promised an offering to every god they encountered."
"Last week I received a postcard from Italy. At first I thought it was a mistake. The message was short but very personal. The sender’s father had “died peacefully” at a care facility in Seoul. The postcard was signed in black ink with a name I didn’t immediately recognize."
"Every night of my life I thanked God for the gift of that ever-unchanging emotion. Many marriages collapsed, others swiftly decayed, swept up in the frenetic music of an increasingly troubled era, but ours remained pure, floating above the world’s tribulations."
"Brodie Moncur stood in the main window of Channon & Co. and looked out at the hurrying pedestrians, the cabs, carriages and labouring drays of George Street."
"They must think I don’t have long left because today they allow the vicar in. Perhaps they are right, although this day feels no different from yesterday, and I imagine tomorrow will go on much the same."
"What happened next happened quickly, and in my shock and emotional confusion, I took for granted that everything passing before my eyes was part of the standard procedure for a soul departing this world. I failed to wonder, as I sailed over the forest floor, why my flight was horizontal rather than vertical, or why I seemed to be headed into town rather than in a more heavenly direction."
"At Odiorne Point State Park the sight of the ocean is immediately tranquilizing. She loves the sand, the cool trembling water, the ranting gulls, the waves’ susurrus. The ocean holds onto an untouchable wildness that the rest of the world is losing."
"Mikki wakes with her head tilted to the side, her young face, neck, and whole body reaching for a person—somebody with a vague but extremely attractive description, who has been lying with great patience and anticipation next to her and must be tall—though she has been alone in bed for all the hours of the night, as she has been every night here. And yet this unknown person takes up space."
"Elisabeth's hands are resting on her stomach. She feels every vibration under her skin. The hands rest there with the same expectation as during her pregnancy— that movement is on its way, that the child will swim towards the hands, that it will turn there, twist, push, roll."
"A crack echoed through the boreal landscape, a momentary chaos in the still afternoon air. In the near distance, a large bull moose fell to its side."
"I would like to see you soon in case you have the freedom was the note I sent to him while in an altered state. No reply came."
"She used to actually say a little prayer every time she heard sirens at night in this city. She would pray for whoever might be bleeding. Now every time she hears sirens she wonders how much can naturally leave the body at the same time."
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