Top Highlights

• He wasn’t a bad kid but he was reckless. Black boys couldn’t afford to be reckless, she had tried to tell him. Reckless white boys became politicians and bankers, reckless black boys became dead.
• Aubrey had drawn her hand back, embarrassed for violating a rule she hadn’t known existed. But she saw then that Nadia didn’t speak about her mother because she wanted to preserve her, keep her for herself. Aubrey didn’t speak about her mother because she wanted to forget that she’d ever had one. And it was easier to forget when she was with Nadia.
• Luke liked her children but he wondered if they were the only reason Cherry and Finch were still together. When he came over to watch a game with Finch, he studied the two of them, expecting to spot some invisible bond between them. But Finch rarely acknowledged Cherry and she was quiet around him, as if they had parceled out space in the house, ca...
• She never wanted him to think she’d halted her life for him. Other fathers might have felt touched, but hers would only feel ashamed. She had inherited this from him, an inability to ask for help, as if needing something was an inconvenience.
• Then Luke kissed her hand and held it between his, and for the rest of the drive, she imagined her life caught between his teeth, her trusting him not to bite.