“I just want to make sure Mama. Sometimes I don’t even know what I want. A lot of times I’m just tired.” Mama reached up and smoothed Liza’s curls away from her face. “Well darlin’, that’s the sign of a life being lived. I think we’re all tired when we’re giving it our best.”

“He had touched her. Bare skin to bare skin. She needed a bleach wipe. She would absolutely use a bleach wipe on her leg. Even if it ate her flesh off.”

“Even then his thoughts did not turn to prayer but to Abbie and to what she would think about his lack of prayerfulness and that surely she would have immediately broken out in prayer. “Doesn’t matter now,” he whispered and felt that he could not cry out to God.~William Drexler the Third”

“It was enough to drive me mad. I was no longer myself and yet I was so much more me than I had ever been before. ~Katherine Demure”

“My heart, for unknown reasons, seems to freeze in motion in my chest. I can see he senses it and he holds his pause to enjoy my suffering, prolonging my ignorance. “Viktor, what?”

“All I know is that the fear I have been battling all night is breaking down the door of my ignorance. As my feet slam down I feel not the hard, wet asphalt but the soft Persian rug that led to the staircase in my father’s home. In the glow of lightning the dancing trees are illuminated but I see my mother in the glow of candlelight, spinning, twirling, her hair fanned out behind her. It is falling over me, saturating my thoughts, and I cannot. I cannot let it in.”

“If he looks at me like that again Dottie will need a bucket and mop to get me back to my room.”

“Liza took her time sipping her tea. “That’s what I hear Janet. Of course, living it up can take years off your life and add them to your face.”

“I just want to make sure Mama. Sometimes I don’t even know what I want. A lot of times I’m just tired.” Mama reached up and smoothed Liza’s curls away from her face. “Well darlin’, that’s the sign of a life being lived. I think we’re all tired when we’re giving it our best.”

“I had turned to leave and he had called after me. “Miss Maria, I kin no other woman who could be wearing men’s trousers and be dripping such as ye are and look quite so lovely. It’s a right shame your mother is marrying you off to that great sot!”I had turned to call back to him, “I doubt very much we will have to worry about that after today!”

“They don’t teach kidnapping at Eton, dad”