"She sees him at the grocery store. He doesn’t see her. He is with his daughter. He is putting green apples in a bag. She grabs a pear and pretends to examine it. She puts it down. She walks over to the melons and stares abstractedly, her heart hammering. She looks up and he’s smiling at her. His smile is warm. Instantly she feels weak and excited. He is walking toward her now.”
“August was heavy with dying bluebottles. They gathered in velvety blue droves on the windowpanes and beat their gauzy wings against the glass. They squatted black and languid along the sills. Alice slouched low in an armchair in the kitchen, watching her father’s curious ballet. The bottoms of his trousers, rolled high above his ankles, unfurled a little further with every stumbling jeté. His newspaper carved frantic circles in the air as he struck at the flies.”
“Phoebe can barely hear the music coming from next door over the incessant chorus of cicadas as she walks around the house with Jackson held to her chest, turning on all the lights. Nick left for work an hour ago, his third night this week. The last two words from him as she closed and locked the door behind him and set the ADT were 'Lights on.'”
