More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Do you not see the risk? she’d wanted to say. Do you not see that calling our son Gordon might mean he ends up like you? But she couldn’t. Because surely that was the point.
And now, all these years later, she feels the floor again. She feels all of it. She recognizes its grip, its support, and knows the floor—this earth—has her. That it rises imperceptibly to meet her, and will catch her if she falls, because she has done the right thing.
It makes him feel wavery inside when she’s distracted; there-but-not-there.
He’s overheard Grandma Sílbhe talking to Eileen. Saying that he—Julian—will be all right; that he can barely remember the night his mother died. It’s Maia she really worries about. And he realizes the wavery feeling isn’t something other people can see.
That old wavery feeling inside given a new form; instead of worry and loneliness, sometimes—now—it’s also excitement.
Gordon once told her a butterfly’s average lifespan is twenty-nine days. She wonders, when she adds up these moments where she exists out in the world, if her lifespan will be any longer. And which would be better? To have those days boiled down into one intense burst of color, or to have the pin removed from the thorax every now and then, dusty wings fluttering back to life, a little more time eked out before being locked away again?
She suspects that, to be a good parent, she must pack away the mothering part of herself into a box and gently close the lid on it. She had not realized this is what would be required of her, had not seen it coming. And yet she will do so willingly. Would you lay down your life for your child? the world silently asks. Yes, she’s done this. But she hadn’t known there would be a second reckoning, where this would eventually mean laying down the arms of motherhood: caution, foreseeing, checking, reminding, nurturing, openly caring. Because a switch has been tripped, and rather than keeping the
...more
“Thank you,” he says into her skirt. “For waiting. For putting up with me.” He looks up. “Do you know the things I love about you, Lily? Really love?” She shakes her head. “Because, yeah, it’s true, I do love that you speak so many languages, that you know your way around European cities, that you’re my equal. Not even my equal; you’re better than me. But I also love the way you sleep curled up like a dormouse,” he says, mimicking her pose. “I love that when you send me letters, you sign off with your first and last name and I’ve never known why you do that, but I haven’t asked in case it
...more
you move. I love that cats follow you home and that you think that happens to everyone—and it does, but not every day. Not every time they leave the house.” She is smiling, but he’s not finished. “I love that when I introduce you to someone, you know exactly what to say to make them feel good, even though you’ve never met before. And even though it’s not great for my ego, I love that they’ll come away liking you better than me. I love how your clothes are kind of drapey—I don’t know how to explain it, but the way your wrists look where they meet your cuffs, it’s sexy, and I love your ankles in
...more
Charlotte is fingering the sweetcorn kernels like worry beads now, and when their eyes meet, Lily realizes that, with her silence, Charlotte is asking her if she really wants to know. To consider what she would do with the information. Lily thinks about Bear. Of what he’d gain if his hunch became fact. If his own name—his essence—became inextricably linked with a man’s death. And Lily thinks how it might feel if she decided not to share whatever she found out with Bear and was left holding the knowledge by herself. “Sorry, forget I ever said anything,” she says. “Maybe it’s best not to know
...more
Mehri has always treated parenting like she’s cooking a big warming pan of something: a pinch of that, a pinch of this, she’s sure it will turn out fine in the end. Cora’s own approach has always felt more like baking a cake: carefully measuring out ingredients and trying not to ruin everything. She admires Mehri’s way.
“Seriously, we’re back here already? Cora, you’re my dearest friend, so I mean this kindly, but you are not responsible for the goings-on of the entire world. Yes, people’s lives bump and collide and we send one another spinning off in different directions. But that’s life. It’s not unique to you. We each make our own choices.”
Cora feels that odd momentary wonder that occasionally hits her to find that Bees and Bear are grown-up, independent people maintaining family relationships with no encouragement from her. She doesn’t know why, at thirty-eight and twenty-nine, this surprises her, but it does.
“Yours was blue; mine was yellow. She always had them made up with snacks, ready to go. Raisins and dried apple rings. Stuff that would keep. Picnic Time,” Maia said, her voice heavy. “That was Picnic Time? I remember it.” Another memory. “I hadn’t known that was why, though.” He wanted these fragments of his mum back, but they were steeped in so much sadness. Even the bits she’d tried to make nice for them. “She really loved us, didn’t she?”
She reads slowly across the course of the week, enjoys leaving the supplements on a side table in the living room, or by her bed. These signs of life, this trail of her own self inhabiting a space, with no need to clear away the evidence, still makes her sigh with unexpected contentment.
