What goes around comes around.
(from "Curly Red")
Lili Rose admired her dad, John Dellamora, who was a local celebrity. A diligent worker, a leader, an amateur boxer, and whatnot, that man had an aura of authority around him. John Dellamora believed that in a rule “what goes around comes around” and tried not to break it. He believed that “the good you do” would be “returned to you.” “Eventually.” Lili Rose wanted to believe in these words too, but she knew that it was just a lie. She did the good and was punished for that severely.
Maybe I am not a happy woman but I believe that happiness is a region in which we can dwell, if only for brief periods of time
(from "Happiness")
Nedra was “a plain girl with a silly streak” and she grew “into a plain woman with a melancholy heart.” The terror she felt and a terrible scene she had seen many years ago prevented her from moving on with her life. Holly, her only one niece, became her biggest joy and a source of her “happiness.” She loved her students too, so she did her best to hide her “melancholy” from them. Maybe she wasn’t “a happy woman” but those rare moments that she spent with her sister and niece convinced her that happiness was just “a region” in which we could “dwell.” That was enough for her.
How do you lose a life?
(from "Fire")
Vivian had lost her mother and father. Everything happened so quickly that she failed to understand it, feel it, analyze it. Looking at their old house, she couldn’t help thinking, “How do you lose a life?” The verb “lose” sounded too strange. If a life could be lost, it could be “found” too, right? Vivian tried to imagine a certain “cyberspace of lost lives, lost souls.” That was surreal! The woman couldn’t believe that there was no one to worry about anymore, she was left alone. In spite of the fact that she Vivian felt sadness, she also felt free.
