A Story Is Like A Moving Train:

I Shook My Head No. For Minutes, Neither Of Us Spoke A Word. It Breathed Between Us, What He Had Said, The Pain Of A Life Suppressed, Of Happiness Never To Be.

The Impact Had Cut Your Upper Lip In Two, He Had Said, Clean Down The Middle. Clean Down The Middle. Like A Harelip.

And Yet She Was Leaving The World As A Woman Who Had Love And Been Loved Back. She Was Leaving It As A Friend, A Companion, A Guardian. A Mother. A Person Of Consequence At Last.

Don't Be Afraid To Tell The Truth. It's Better To Hurt Someone By Truth Than To Make Them Happy By Lies.

In The Coming Days And Weeks, Laila Would Scramble Frantically To Commit It All To Memory, What Happened Next. Like An Art Lover Running Out Of A Burning Museum, She Would Grab Whatever She Could--a Look, A Whisper, A Moan--to Salvage From Perishing To Preserve. But Time Is The Most Unforgiving Of Fires, And She Couldn't, In The End, Save It All.