The Invention of Wings

by Sue Monk Kidd

“Ain’t nobody can write down in a book what you worth.”

“He that finds his life shall lose it, and he that loses his life shall find it.” Do not fear to lose what needs to be lost.

Missus said Goodis gave shiftless a bad name,

I’d chosen the regret I could live with best, that’s all. I’d chosen the life I belonged to.

As he left, I peered at Sarah Mapps and her mother, the way they grabbed hands and squeezed in relief, and then at Nina, at the small exultation on her face. She was braver than I, she always had been. I cared too much for the opinion of others, she cared not a whit. I was cautious, she was brash. I was a thinker, she was a doer. I kindled fires, she spread them. And right then and ever after, I saw how cunning the Fates had been. Nina was one wing, I was the other.