Three Days in June

by Anne Tyler

“You know you’re always free to back out,” I told her. “Even at the last minute! Even walking down the aisle!”

Anger feels so much better than sadness. Cleaner, somehow, and more definite. But then when the anger fades, the sadness comes right back again the same as ever.

“No one goes into a marriage saying, ‘Oh, well, I can always walk out tomorrow if I happen to change my mind.’ ”

Sometimes when I find out what’s on other people’s minds I honestly wonder if we all live on totally separate planets.

Why had I, who truly loved my husband—at least in the on-again-off-again, maybe/maybe-not, semi-happy way of just about any married woman—broken apart my whole world for a man I never really knew? But maybe that was just it: I hadn’t known him. There are times when that can be the strongest draw of all.

“This is more like ‘It’s not you; it’s the me that I am when I’m with you.’ ”

Someday I’d like to be given credit for all the times I have not said something that I could have said.

I’m too young for this, I thought. Not too old, as you might expect, but too young, too inept, too uninformed. How come there weren’t any grownups around? Why did everyone just assume I knew what I was doing?

How was it that, standing in a field of gold, I had not had the faintest idea whether it was wheat or rye or barley? Why had I registered Max’s awe as he cupped my face, his look of utter adoration, but given not one passing thought to whether I had adored him?