Papa once told me, “Pain doesn’t destroy love, Kimi. It refines it.” But what if love itself becomes pain? What if loving someone who’s dying feels like loving the end of the world every day?

They wouldn’t live together now except during the last year: the one when, following customs handed down unrevised, the mother, rather than die under the eyes of the old servant who had always been with her—and who in fact was her only friend—would have to confront that tremendous, ultimate human experience before a young stranger who knew nothing

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As if every bit of breath had been sucked out of his body, he visibly sagged back into the thin comfort of his easy chair. Izzy had the distinct feeling that her father had been possessed in these moments, that someone else was speaking through him. It didn’t make her love him more, but it made her understand him just a little, which was maybe all

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