Here One Moment

by Liane Moriarty

“No one can see the future,” frets Max. Oncologists can, thinks Sue. Oncologists, neurologists, cardiologists, hematologists. All those damned “ologists.” They’re the fortune tellers. They don’t read your cards, they read your blood tests, your scans, your genetic tests, and see terrible things in your future.

comes to my mind, I become too literal, I try too hard to be accurate when no one cares as much as me about accuracy, and I can see by people’s faces that I am being “odd,”

A parent’s love is surely strong enough to occasionally crash through the barrier dividing heaven and earth.

got into one of those strangely intimate conversations that sometimes happen between strangers when there is too much alcohol and not enough food,

“I just…forgot. For a moment I forgot. I can’t believe I did that. I felt like talking to him.”

How is it he still gets to be here in this solar system, is still allowed to stand on this planet as it orbits around the sun, when Harvey is in some other dimension? Or simply no longer exists?

Everyone loves a particular version of you and when that person is gone that version goes with them. My dad was so interested in me. Mum was interested too, but Mum loved a different version of me.

please protect your vulnerable beautiful heads that we once cupped so tenderly in our hands.

You never know what your last words are going to be, so try to choose them all wisely.

Look a little closer at the next older lady you meet. You might see that sparkle.

Or you might not. Some of us are grumpy and sad. Some of us are in serious pain: our feet, our hips, our shoulders. Some of us are crazed with grief and regret for wrong decisions.

he keeps crying while he’s showering and shaving and he thinks: For fuck’s sake, when will this be DONE?

Desire can be powerful enough to sweep away everything in its path: your good sense, your Catholic upbringing, your plans for the next day. It was all I thought about.

once she says the words out loud it will set everything in motion.

It’s strange how rarely you sit quietly opposite the people you love, without a menu or a meal or a drink between you.

It’s a very particular time in your life, when someone you love is dying.

The world doesn’t stop for you. We know this, but in our hearts we are shocked.

Chapter 103

He knows both women know they can’t refuse: that it’s safer to let a guy this drunk slobber over their hands, because his mood can turn on a dime,

Friends can save your life.

your loved ones will believe the fervency of their prayers for you paid dividends, but it’s just math.