Tom Lake

And so I would hold her. You don’t forget that, even if your daughters have grown and been gone for years and then come home.

I’ve made a point never to think of him at all, except that now I am thinking of him.

I thought dating meant when I was their age: ice cream, movies, walking home from school, the dread and desire that surrounded the mystery of kissing.

Imagine braiding the tails of three mice and then throwing in a cat.

Live forever, I say to myself.

“ ‘All the world’s a stage,’ ”

first time is luxury, the second time privilege.

liked school fine but hated the gym and everything it stood for: team sports, pep rallies, vicious games of kickball, running in circles when it was too cold to go outside, formal dances, graduations.

You think the thing that hurt you is going to hurt you forever but it doesn’t.

Good marriages are never as interesting as bad affairs.