"The thing about Simon Limbres’s heart, this human heart, is that, since the moment of his birth, when its rhythm accelerated, as did the other hearts around it, in celebration of the event, the thing is, that this heart, which made him jump, vomit, grow, dance lightly like a feather or weigh heavy as a stone, which made him dizzy with exhilaration and made him melt with love, which filtered, recorded, archived—the black box of a twenty-year-old body—the thing is that nobody really knows it."
"But every action in that town seemed to be spread out over the centuries. The caravan of nights and days passed so slowly there, as though it weren’t moving at all, but had halted."
"In the lull before morning recess, Danny looked up to see his mother’s head framed in the window of his fourth grade classroom door. She grimaced, peered in, pressed the mesh with her vivid painted mouth."
"On June 14, 2014, my husband, John Rehm—age eighty-three—began his withdrawal from life. The aides at Brighton Gardens were instructed to stop bringing medications, menus, or water."