The Heiress

by Rachel Hawkins

And if you can’t tell the truth at the end of it all, then what, I ask, is the fucking point?

Shocking how soon the “too late now” part of your life arrives. When you’re young, there’s nothing but possibility, just an endless line of tomorrows, and then you wake up one day and realize that no, you cannot move to Paris on a whim because so many of those old buildings don’t have elevators and stairs are hell on your knees now. And besides, you never learned to speak French, and now your brain, once so fresh and spongy and ready to soak up knowledge, feels about as pliable as a peach pit.

That made him laugh, and if the smile was an arrow to the heart—and other, lower portions of one’s anatomy—then the laugh was Fourth of July fireworks, wonderful, thrilling, the kind of thing that made you want to hug yourself with the sheer delight of it.