You never give such relationships a thought, To give a thought, to take a thought is a function of dissociation, distance. You can't exercise memory … - Joyce Carol Oates

"Fiction that adds up, that suggests a "logical consistency," or an explanation of some kind, is surely second-rate fiction; for the truth of life is its mystery."

....whatever you do, with whom you do it or whether you do it alone, and when, and how, and why, to what mysterious end — it's balanced against nothing, against Death and forgetting. You balanced against oblivion.

Close up she saw that Molina's eyes were beautiful and dark thik eye lashed the way Lisette's mother tried to make hers with a mascara brush. The skin beneath Molina's eyes were soft and bruised looking and on her throat were tiny dark moles. It did not seem right that a woman like Molina, who you could tell was a mother-her body was a mother's body for sure, wide hips-could be a cop;it did not seem right that this person was carrying a gun, in a holster attached to leather belt, and that she could use it, if she wanted to.