...they were nobodies in the county, they would leave nothing behind but their headstones. — John Updike

"Did Nelson ever tell you the story," Pru asks Annabelle, "how he lost the agency up his nose?"

His voice is hurrying, to keep up with his brain.

[Annabelle] "...health care is an expanding field, as the world fills up with people that would have been dead a hundred years ago. Everybody winds up needing care, pretty much."