"Where there's cake, there's hope. And there's always cake." — Dean Koontz

She said, "Love isn't enough. Your parents have to know how to relate to you, and to each other. They have to want to be with you more than with anyone else. They have to love being home more than anywhere in the world, and they have to be more interested in you than in…"

"Snakes and tornadoes," I suggested.

"God, I love them. They're nice, Jimmy, they really are, and they mean well. But they live inside themselves more than not, and they keep their doors closed. You see them mostly through windows."