Commonwealth

by Ann Patchett

The nuns had led her to believe that God gave preference to people who did things the hard way.

Hope, Fix said, was the blood of life,

All the stories go with you, Franny thought, closing her eyes. All the things I didn’t listen to, won’t remember, never got right, wasn’t around for.

Life, Teresa knew by now, was a series of losses. It was other things too, better things, but the losses were as solid and dependable as the earth itself.

She was shocked by how bad he looked. Cancer really was the devil’s handshake.

Holly, who made it her business to look after everyone else, was for that one golden moment protected. By her brother.

The more Holly felt Cal’s presence in her life now, the more she knew he cared for her, that he forgave her. The better job she did at keeping her life quiet, her eyes open to the simple beauty that surrounded her, the better she was able to hear him.

She didn’t hear him in any nutty way, they didn’t sit around and talk politics, it was more a pleasant feeling,

He is fifteen and ten and five. He is an instant. He is flying back to her. He is hers again. She feels the weight of him in her chest as

he comes into her arms. He is her son, her beloved child, and she takes him back.

“For the vast majority of the people on this planet,” Fix had said, “the thing that’s going to kill them is already on the inside.”