"I met someone wonderful," my lover tells me from the dark. She is so honest I cannot take offense. Her voice remains calm, and I suppose she feels nothing but sincere hope and love. Fredi says, "He isn't like you at all." After a moment she laughs. "I didn't mean it like that. You are wonderful, too. He's just differently wonderful." She quickly looks at me from across the bed where she sits lotus; I feel the motion behind my eyeballs rather than actually see the shift of her head. I'm sure the glance is meant as an apology. [...]

Henrick Sitton's wife Lilla died in the winter of 1978 from pneumonia and fever, a combination of diseases that left her body hot and frail and light, almost transparent, like you could almost see the organs working hard to keep her alive, like you could watch the blood pulse feebly through her veins, like you could study the bowels as they squeezed every last bit of energy from the little food she could manage to hold down. The only part of her you couldn't just about see into was her head.

Oscar mounted the horse, swinging over the saddle like a green-horn. "It's been awhile," he explained with some satisfaction. "Been awhile, and it doesn't come back as easily as I'd supposed." He was unsure why he'd dismounted in the first place.

Fear: the world's fuel. The great motive. The point of it all. In life, I can make a short list of things I've done for love--and an endless, uncontrollable list of adventures, experiences, stories that I haven't lived because of fear. Fear thwarts your free will in the most insidious and subtle way. Fear, that- "Good morning, sir."