What I think was hardest for me to realize was that he had tried each time to stop himself. He had killed animals, taking lesser lives to keep from killing a child

Heaven is comfort, but it's still not living.

How to Commit the Perfect Murder" was an old game in heaven. I always chose the icicle: the weapon melts away.

I forgive you," I said. I said what I had to. I would die by pieces to save myself from real death.

You save yourself or you remain unsaved.

Judging Natalie as my mother had judged me was, I felt like telling her son, just my ass-backward way of showing love. I'd spent my life trying to translate that language, and now I realized I had come to speak it fluently. When was it that you realized the thread woven through your DNA carried the relationship deformities of your blood relatives as much as it did their diabetes and bone density?