Abide with Me

by Elizabeth Strout

“Now, Belle. Let’s be considerate. Let’s think of the other person first.” Silence. He thought she might have walked away from the phone. “Belle?” “I heard you. Do you know why Dad said that crap about thinking of the other one first? Always be considerate?” “Because he was kind and—” “Because he was scared. He was scared to have an opinion. The only opinion that ever mattered in that house was Mother’s. What he meant was, Always think of Margaret Caskey first, because if you don’t, God help you.”

If you’re always thinking of the other person first, you don’t have to bother with what you’re feeling. Or thinking.”

“No one, to my knowledge, has figured out the secret to love. We love imperfectly, Tyler. We all do.

“I suspect the most we can hope for, and it’s no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love.”