Commonwealth

by Ann Patchett

What you have to remember about your mother is that she didn’t have her own character. She turned into whoever she was sitting next to.

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.

It was just about going forward in those days, one step, one step, not falling all the way down into myself. I didn’t think about changing my life. My life had already been changed. I just had to get through it.”

“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.”