Fates and Furies

by Lauren Groff

[Grief is for the strong, who use it as fuel for burning.]

The world was precarious, Lotto had learned. People could be subtracted from it with swift bad math.

the late-afternoon sun shining in like a voyeur.

Their marriage picked itself up off the ground, stretched, looked at them with its hands on its hips.

“Please. Marriage is made of lies. Kind ones, mostly. Omissions. If you give voice to the things you think every day about your spouse, you’d crush them to paste. She never lied. Just never said.”