[gmw]

Love is blind. She shakes herself, hard. A foolish notion. Whatever exists between them now cannot be called love. Call it friendship, companionship, the camaraderie of soldiers who have been through a dozen bloody wars together and somehow survived. Never love. Love is for children and milkmaids, for painters and their muses, for birds so caught up in the warm flush of spring fever they lose sight of everything but their own desire.

‘Well, nobody needs gifts. But they can help, they can act as reminders that you’re not alone. Sometimes we need reminding.’

-- Lauren Chater, Gulliver's Wife (2020)