Mark nodded even though she couldn't see. He'd suddenly lost any desire to talk, and his plans for a perfect day washed away with the stream. The memories. They never let him go, not even for a half hour. They always had to rush back in, bringing all the horror.

Cathy, don't look so defeated. She was only trying to put us downagain.Maybe nothing did work out right for her, but that doesn't mean we aredoomed. Let's go forth tomorrow with no great expectations of findingperfection. Then, expecting only a small share of happiness, we won'tbe disappointed."If a little hill of happiness would satisfy Chris, good for him. Butafter all these years of striving, hoping, dreaming, longing-I wanted amountain high! A hill wasn't enough. From this day forward, I vowedto myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, notGod, not even Chris was ever again going to tell me what to do, ordominate me in any way. From this day forward, I was my own person, totake what I would, when I would, and I would answer only to myself. I'dbeen kept prisoner, held captive by greed. I'd been betrayed,deceived, tied to, used, poisoned ... but all that was over now.

Perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something that needs our love.

How terrible this darkness was, how bewildering, and yet mysteriously beautiful!

He must have stood there for a long time, making a list of all the terrible things he had done__lmost killinng me was one of those thingss__nd another list of all the good, heroic, brave things he had not done, and then decided that he was tired. Tired, not just of living, but of existing. Tired of being Al.

There are things that once done can__ be undone, things that once said can__ be unsaid.