The Story of Arthur Truluv (Mason, #1)

by Elizabeth Berg

He wishes he’d have said something to make her think that in the great unknown there was one constant: everything would be all right.

“Oh, Arthur, no one even sees you when you get old except for people who knew you when you were young.”

He stops his rocking to look over at her. “But what we need are readers. Right? Where would writers be without readers? Who are they going to write for? And actors, what are they without an audience? Actors, painters, dancers, comedians, even just ordinary people doing ordinary things, what are they without an audience of some sort? “See, that’s what I do. I am the audience. I am the witness. I am the great appreciator, that’s what I do and that’s all I want to do. I worked for a lot of years. I did a lot of things for a lot of years. Now, well, here I am in the rocking chair, and I don’t mind it, Lucille. I don’t feel useless. I feel lucky.” She says

on. She believes that her last chance for love just died, and her last chance was her first love, and there is something about that that is awfully hard to bear. Think about it. To know you’re at the end of hoping for love and to realize that something else will have to do, if you’re going to have any reason to go on.

And happiness said, ‘You’re not looking at me. You’re looking at you.’

For everything there truly is a season; if his life’s work has not taught him that, it has taught him nothing. The birth of spring, the fullness of summer, the push of glory in the fall, the quiet of winter.

“I’ll love you forever in darkness and sun, I’ll love you past when my whole sweet life is done,”