Kathy Hepinstall

“Instead he felt only love. And that was the miracle. The surge in hatred since the war began had created more love around it. It was indomitable, mad, and everlasting, scattered through the rich and the poor, deep and calm in the Quakers, hot and fierce in the mothers, faithful in the warriors, wistful in the pets, seeping its way into mercy and atrocity, destroying things, rebuilding them.”

“I wanted someone above me in the chain of life. I didn't want to be alone, a single blue egg in a crumbling nest.”

“They had engaged in what could not be called treatment or even discussion, but open combat, the two of them a microcosm of the great war raging in the far distance: one side that desired autonomy, and the other that took independence as a sign of madness.”

“You should have tried the eggplant parmesan she tried to hoist on me at the church bake sale. No wonder her children turned to Satan. He probably showed up as an angel of light and promised them a decent meal.”

“[That] was the cruelty of fate, whether you were dying at sea or simply trying to get through high school. Sometimes fate kissed you. Sometimes it snubbed you. Sometimes it passed you a love note, and that note was a lie.”