How could a person have and do all these stupid things-clip coupons and double lock the front door-and then one day just cease to exist?
The girls said she was too cynical about love, but how could you not be? On the surface, relations between men and women were all soft kisses and white gowns and hand-holding. But underneath they were a scary, complicated, ugly mess, just waiting to rise to the surface.
Women leave their marriages when they can't take any more. Men leave when they find someone new.
With the Smithies, it was different. There was sometimes no telling where one of them began and the others left off.