A Spool of Blue Thread

by Anne Tyler

Not that she had neglected them, but she certainly hadn’t screwed up her eyes and focused on them the way she had focused on Denny. And yet it was Denny who complained of feeling slighted!

Maybe when he was grown, she remembered thinking during his childhood, he would finally tell her what used to make him so angry.

‘You’re only ever as happy as your least happy child?’

“Something’s not right. Something’s off somewhere; what is it?” And then you remember that it’s your child—whichever one is unhappy.

Maybe the reason he’d forgotten was that he took their happiness for granted. He didn’t fret about it. Whereas Abby … oh, she fretted, all right.

She couldn’t bear to think that their family was just another muddled, discontented, ordinary family.