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“My job isn’t always to keep you safe,” said her mother. “My job is to teach you to keep yourself safe.
“You can’t give up something that brings you joy just because it is difficult. Or because there may be a risk.
“But if the words are so simple,” Augusta pressed, “why are they so important?” “Must words be complicated or unusual for us to believe in them?”
“Words can do anything,” she said. “A
kind word can fix a person’s spirit. A cruel one can break a person’s heart. Wicked words have caused wars, and honest words have made peace. Why shouldn’t they be able to heal?”
“B’sha’ah tovah.”
Mazel tov, Augusta had been taught, was appropriate only when referring to something that had already occurred.
translated loosely, meant “all in good time.” It was a wish for the future, rather than a blessing for the past
Why burden ourselves with complications when there is always so much else to be done?”
“Mama used to say that the three strands of the challah are meant for truth, peace, and justice.” “A lovely explanation,” said Esther. “But why not past, present, and future? Braiding is associated with strength, is it not? Why not beauty, honor, and strength?
“It is not so simple, is it? I could offer many more interpretations, but the point is, there isn’t one explanation. Things are never as straightforward as we want them to be, Goldie. Why must I choose a single solution when the truth lies somewhere in between them all?”
The world we inhabit is not always kind.”
That was the nice thing about spending time with a person you’d known for almost all of your life—the memories you shared grew even more vivid when you remembered them together.
“Clarity can be a wonderful gift. To see something so unambiguously, to be free of all doubt—who wouldn’t want that?”
“But sometimes clarity reveals difficult truths.
Oh, how she wanted to be that woman again—a woman who, yes, had suffered losses, but whose heart had not yet been broken beyond repair. A woman who was curious and hopeful and who still believed in the glimmers of magic that made their way quietly into the world.
She believed in medicine and in miracles. She believed in family and in love.
She believed in the power of moonlight in kitchens, in the power of women, in the power of words. She believed that even on life’s darkest days, a bowl of chicken soup could offer comfort. She believed that the world still held a bit of magic for those who were patient and wise enough to wait.
