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“I just wanted to show you that sometimes things survive despite the harshest of odds.”
Though Saint knew that purpose in its many forms was what kept the living just so.
Saint wanted to ask what it was like, to lose the thing that defined you. But perhaps she knew: it left you someone else. A stranger you had no choice but to tolerate, and see each day and feel and fear.
It had taken her near two full seasons to fill that first roll of film, so sparing was she in what she deemed worthy to hold on to.
“If you ever get the chance to make someone smile, or better yet, make someone laugh, then you take it. Each and every time,” Norma said.
At ten years old he realized that people were born whole, and that the bad things peeled layers from the person you once were, thinning compassion and empathy and the ability to construct a future. At thirteen he knew those layers could sometimes be rebuilt when people loved you. When you loved.
“Okay is the preserve of the uninspired, Patchwork. I’d rather live and die at the extremes than exist in the middle.”
“People have short memories when you do something good, and long when you fuck things up,” Sammy said.
Patch wondered if hope was its own kind of punishment, sometimes worse than certainty, than the long and closed-off road toward healing.
Patch stood there and felt the acute weight of keeping another person alive against such ruthless and random odds.
“And then you knocked her up. I know I was an accident. A bastard out of Boston.” “That could be your pen name.”
“Maybe when we pray we’re not asking for intervention. We’re just reminding ourselves of the things that matter. You screw up and ask forgiveness of yourself. Someone loses their way, and you search your own mind for the guidance to help them.”
Saint knew that for some it was written in the stars that no matter how hard they fought their road did not lead somewhere good.
To love and be loved was more than could ever be expected, more than enough for a thousand ordinary lifetimes.
