Fates and Furies

by Lauren Groff

It comes over us that we shall never again hear the laughter of our friend, that this garden is forever locked against us. And at that moment begins our true grief. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

have left me only bitterness and anguish. You didn’t die in bed, stretching your arms toward me. You didn’t give me one last sweet word that I might remember in all my sorrow.

she would see her life had not been, at its core, about love. There had been terrific love in it. Heat and magic. Lotto, her husband. Christ, there had been him. Yet—yes!—the sum of her life, she saw, was far greater than its sum of love.]