"I think that even before I really looked at it, I knew something was wrong. But what I saw as I began to run towards it was that the door to the back seat was hanging open, that my jacket, the one I'd used to cover Molly, was lying on the ground just outside it. I nearly tripped across a cat in my haste; it shirked and fled off into some bushes." (Chapter 1, p.22)

"Now there was nowhere in my life I felt at home. I felt completely false to myself, that there wasn't any center to me, that there was no situation in which I told the truth or acted on the truth with anyone." (Chapter 2, p.52)

"'It's not poverty I care about, Grandfather. And Brian's helping us anyway. We're hardly poor. It's independence. It's being my own person.' 'Being your own person,' he repeated...