"I didn't ask what her wish had been. I had a feeling I already knew. It was what I myself continued to battle. What I wrote down only to tear up each day. What was lodged in my sunken chest like an arrowhead."

"It can be difficult to distinguish forbearance from resignation, sorrow from partial reconciliation, fortitude from loneliness. I thought about how difficult it can be to tell these emotions apart on the basis of facial expressions and gestures, about how the person in question may struggle to distinguish these feelings in themselves"