Commonwealth

by Ann Patchett

There was no embarrassment there, only peace, only enough time left to ask for one more favor, which Franny thought was the deepest difference between women and men.

Was there any chance the problem was that he put himself in the center of everything? That wasn’t the problem.

They were playing house. She was playing hostess.

she was the electricity, the spark. Franny Keating was life.

it was a wonderful thing to be needed by the person she most admired, to be told she was indispensable.

Franny couldn’t help but believe that she had brought every discomfort she experienced down on herself.

All the stories go with you,

but sometimes all the right things are as useless as nothing at all.

losses were as solid and dependable as the earth itself.

The things you really need are never there when you need them.

“Keeping people safe is a story we tell ourselves.”

thought she must be emitting light from her entire body she loved him so much.

as if her heart had been waiting for this exact moment. Finally! her heart said to her. At last!

But sometimes people didn’t. Sometimes they lived their entire lives never knowing the fate they missed.

age arrived at different rates of speed, in different ways.