" Do you ever think?
What?
They were lying together on the sofa that had always been there, the crappy beat-up biscuit-colored sofa that was managing, as best it could, its promotion from threadbare junk to holy artifact.
You know.
What if I don't know?
You fucking do.
Okay, yeah. Yes. I, too, wonder if Dad worried so much about every single little goddamned thing . . .
That he summoned it.
Thanks. I couldn't say it.
That some god or goddess heard him, one time too many, getting panicky about whether she'd been carjacked at the mall, or had, like, hair cancer . . .
That they delivered the think even he couldn't imagine worrying about.
It's not true.
I know.
But we're both thinking about it.
That may have been their betrothal. That may have been when they took their vows: We are no longer siblings, we are mates, starship survivors, a two-man crew wandering the crags and crevices of a planet that may not be inhabited by anyone but us. We no longer need, or want, a father.
Still, they really have to call him. It's been way too long. "

― Michael Cunningham , The Snow Queen