Beautiful Ugly

by Alice Feeney

My wife tells stories that matter, trying to save the world from itself. I tell stories that matter to me.

My books have always been a place to hide myself inside myself when the real world gets too loud.

Marriage is made of a million beautiful and ugly moments stitched together into a shared tapestry of memories, all of which are viewed and remembered slightly differently, like two people stari...

The only thing I don’t like about being alone is the amount of time it forces me to spend with myself.

“It’s very quiet and very peaceful—apparently—but by all accounts it is a bit isolated. And rural life is not for everyone. There aren’t many people on the island…”

Sus…

Grief is a patient thief and steals far more than people who have never known it realize.

“Success is often the result of a series of failures. Try to remember that. You never learn anything from success, but failure can teach you everything about a person.

I know some people thought she just decided to leave me when she disappeared. But even if she was going to leave me, I know she’d never stage something so dramatic. Abby isn’t like that.

Oh? So ur dumb??? Bc I KNOW she left your ass

The black van with the Highland cow logo is the last vehicle to drive past me, and I don’t think I imagine how slowly it moves, or how long the silhouette of the driver stares at me through the tinted window before turning their attention to the road.

Is this the wife???

A lone piper perhaps. Like something you might hear at a funeral.

“It’ll help get you in the mood!” she says, staring at me in the rearview mirror with a grin accompanied by an odd little wink. I do not ask what for. And I do not ask her to turn the “music” down even though it is a smidgen loud.

She’s literally taking him to his coffin and he doesn’t ask questions?? Where is this man’s intuition?

but I’m also the sheriff here on Amberly. I should have introduced myself before kidnapping you and your dog.”

SHERIFF ADMITTING A CRIMEE????

“People always see ghosts on this island.”

Run away. Run away. Run away. I shake off the negative thoughts and try to replace them with positive ones, but I am out of practice. There is nothing not to like about this place, and I am lucky to be here.

“People rarely know what they have until they lose it. They spend their lives searching for a better one, wanting more, needing more, blind to the fact that they already had it all. I think sometimes it’s only when something gets taken from a person that they appreciate what they had.

She understood how important trees were to the future of the planet and the future of us, but the men in charge back then didn’t listen. Those in charge of things today still don’t. You soon learn, living in a place like this, that we’re all connected. Trees grow down as well as up and I think it’s the same with people. The more we grow up, the more we learn to feel down.

Not a cobweb in sight. The penny drops. Kitty must have paid someone to come in, clean the place, and prepare it for my arrival. That woman thinks of everything. I should send something to thank her. Ideally a new novel.

You think your agent who told you they haven’t done anything with it is going to get it prepared??