Orphan Train

by Christina Baker Kline

I’ve come to think that’s what heaven is—a place in the memory of others where our best selves live on.

No substitute for the living, perhaps, but I wasn’t given a choice. I could take solace in their presence or I could fall down in a heap, lamenting what I’d lost.

I’ll play your fucking game. But I don’t have to play by your rules.

“I suppose this is why people have children, isn’t it?”

A lady wants to feel pretty, no matter how much money she has.”