Chapter 13

• “There’s time to spare. This is one of the things I wasn’t prepared for – the amount of unfilled time, the long parentheses of nothing. Time as white sound.”
• “But maybe boredom is erotic, when women do it, for men.”
• “I wait, washed, brushed, fed, like a prize pig. [...] I wish i had a pig ball.
• “I couldn’t talk to her for several days, we looked only, small glances, like sips.”
• “It makes me feel safer, that Moira is here.”
• “We can go to the washroom if we put our hands up, though there’s a limit to how many times a day, they mark it down on a chart.”
• “At Testifying it’s safer to make things up than to say you have nothing to reveal.”
• “Her fault, her fault, her fault, we chant in unison. Who led them on? Aunt Helena beams, pleased with us. She did. She did. She did. Why did God allow such a terrible thing to happen? Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson.”
• “she looked disgusting, weak, squirmy, blotchy, pink, like a newborn mouse.” [...] we despised her"
• We meant it, which is the bad part
• I don't know. Not knowing makes it worse.
• God, do I need a cigarette, says Moira. / Me too, I say. / I feel ridiculously happy.”
• “I watch for blood, fearfully, for when it comes it means failure.”
• “I’m a cloud, the congealed around an object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red”
• It occurs to me that he may not be alive.
• and the edges go dark and nothing is left but a little window, a very little window, like the wrong end of a telescope, like the window on a Christmas card, an old one, night and ice outside, and within a candle, a shining tree, a family, I can hear the bells even, sleighbells, from the radio, old music, but through this I can see, small but very clear, I can see her, going away from me”
• “I pull her to the ground and roll on top of her to cover her, shield her. Quiet, I say again, my face is wet, sweat or tears, I feel calm and floating, as if I’m no longer in my body”
• “Of all the dreams this is the worst.”