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Isabel had never known loneliness like that, one that arrived without the promise of leaving.
She belonged to the house in the sense that she had nothing else, no other life than the house, but the house, by itself, did not belong to her.
She thought that might have been joy, or something like it. Something that feels sad as much as it feels like love.
What was the worth of happiness that left behind a crater thrice the size of its impact.
Isabel held the jug in the dip of her palm. The night had made the space between them odd, hushed. Isabel met Eva’s gaze and said, “A house is a precious thing.”
The terror was as wide as the want: a boulder moved from the gaping mouth of a cave.
Eva closed her eyes the moment he was out of sight. Isabel touched her hand on passing: her smallest finger to Eva’s smallest finger. A touch, a hook, and gone.
How quickly did the belly of despair turn itself over into hope, the give of the skin of overripe fruit.
She said, quiet, “Who are you?” She said, “Have you always been like this? Have you just been waiting to happen?”
Isabel tried to breathe through the misery of holding someone else’s hurt within oneself and stayed awake like a guard dog—like there was something to keep out. Like there was someone trying to get in.
She had held a pear in her hand and she had eaten it skin and all. She had eaten the stem and she had eaten its seeds and she had eaten its core, and the hunger still sat in her like an open maw. She thought: I can hold you and find that I still miss your body. She thought: I can listen to you speak and still miss the sound of your voice.
Little baby Jesus everywhere. They have no problem letting Jews into their homes as long as they’re carved from wood, do they.
That’s what happens when people die. They take themselves with them and you never ever find out anything new about them ever.
a miracle, she thought, to stand so solidly on what could also engulf you.
