Affection may not be love, but it is at least its cousin. - J. M. Coetzee

If Providence were to watch over all of us,” said Cruso, “who would be left to pick the cotton and cut the sugar cane? For the business of the world to prosper, Providence must sometimes wake and sometimes sleep, as lower creatures do.”

he knows too much about himself to subject her to a morning after, when he will be cold, surly, impatient to be alone.

I return to Mother's stretcher, and she's sitting up now, wearing a hospital gown as neatly as she can make it seem. When she reads my face, she smooths her hair, sits up straight, the paper beneath her making soft crinkling sounds. "It is a new day," she says firmly.