Attachments

by Rainbow Rowell

“I still don’t like that you read other people’s mail. Especially at night, in an empty building. That shouldn’t be someone’s job.”

She found a cigarette and put it in her mouth. It hung there, unlit. “Where else am I supposed to meet a guy?” she asked, watching the dancers. “Like, in a garden?” “A garden would be nice,” he said. “I’d pay a cover charge at a singles garden.”

One of their kids had rotavirus, which Lincoln had never even heard of. It sounded awful. He pictured a virus with rotating blades and an engine.

“Food touches!” Lincoln heard his mother say. “The world touches!” After about twenty minutes, Eve leaned out the back door and told the boys to come say good-bye to Grandma. Eve looked frustrated and angry, and she’d been crying. “We’re going to Wendy’s,” she said to Lincoln. “Do you want to come?” “No, I’m full.” “I’m not sorry about anything I said,” she said. “It was all true. You are rotting here.” “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I’m ripening.” Eve slammed the back door closed.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’m sure I wouldn’t know. I can’t stand books like that. Why should every pregnant woman be expected to read the same book? Or any book? Being pregnant isn’t that complicated. What to Expect When You’re Expecting shouldn’t be a book. It should be a Post-it: “Take your vitamins. Don’t drink vodka. Get used to empire waistlines.”

“Pfft,” she said, “it’s real food. Real food isn’t bad for you. It’s everything else that’s killing us. The dyes. The pesticides. The preservatives. Margarine.” His mother had a special disdain for margarine. Finding out that a family kept margarine in the butter dish was like finding out their pets weren’t house-trained. If margarine was such a good idea, she said, why didn’t God give it to us?

here because we stan butter

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. Actually, that’s not true, I feel like the entire world should feel sorry for me. I’m pathetic and I’m miserable. But I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me if it means they have to think about my uterus.

Beth said they could tell whomever they wanted after they’d been together long enough for it to seem like a bizarre footnote to their relationship. And not the whole freaky story.