Mockingbird Summer

by Lynda Rutledge

There is a young moment when the world can suddenly reveal that it doesn’t revolve around you.

Everybody’s got their own story, she realized as she locked eyes with the driver of a passing car . . . and they’re swirling around me every moment of every day. All she had to do was be open to seeing them.

“It’s just that adults, especially women, sometimes need time to themselves. Away from everything. That’s all.”

“‘There’s no frigate like a book to take us lands away’

We forget that it’s our duty to remember to be better, to stand up to Evil when it shows itself, even if it sometimes shows itself within our own hearts. In fact, that’s the only kind over which we really have total control, the kind within us. It’s also the kind easiest to make right.”

“Stay open, child. Don’t let the world close you down. God knows it’s gonna try—and God knows it can do it. Stay open so your heart can do what it’s supposed to do. If you do, I know it’s going to be something good.

Unlike the end of a book that wraps up all the loose ends, though, real life, its loose ends dangling everywhere, always goes on.