“And it was at moments like this that she had to remind herself that she was in love with him, or had once been in love with him, a long time ago.”

“She had loved him for such a long time, she thought. How was it that she did now know him at all?”

“You had to know someone very well to make them laugh like that. She had loved him for such a long time, she thought. How was it that she did not know him at all?”

“She had been restless and forceful, a killer of the border hills, yet she had a childlike faith in love. She had given herself to him and never doubted the wisdom of the gift as he had sometimes doubted it. She had kept the faith, and she was dead.”

“She loved him because he had brought her back to life. She had been like a caterpillar in a cocoon, and he had drawn her out and shown her that she was a butterfly.”

“At first, she could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him?”

“She had tried to love him.”

“She didn't love him and he didn't love her; she was like an addiction, and what they were doing had a darkness to it, a weight.”

“She too had found the experience transforming. How could she not? A demon had been exorcised. Several. And just when she felt more capable of love than she had ever been, she found herself alone.”

“Now she had to pretend not to love the man she was pretending to love while pretending she wasn't sleeping with him.”