Then She Was Gone

by Lisa Jewell

May was like the Friday night of summer: all the good times lying ahead of you, bright and shiny and waiting to be lived.

The blame game could be exhausting sometimes. The blame game could make you lose your mind… all the infinitesimal outcomes, each path breaking up into a million other paths every time you heedlessly chose one, taking you on a journey that you’d never find your way back from.

as someone who shared a journey with you and as someone who loves you and cares about you. I don’t need to be married to you to be all those things. Those things are deeper than marriage. Those things are forever.”

Cooking doesn’t just nurture the recipient; it nurtures the chef.

I will never guilt trip my children when they are adults, she’d vowed. I will never expect more than they are able to give.

“Stories,” she says, “are the only thing in this world that are real. Everything else is just a dream.”

“When I read a book it feels like real life and when I put the book down it’s like I go back into the dream.”

I remember being twenty-one and thinking that my personality was a solid thing, that me was set in stone, that I would always feel what I felt and believe what I believed. But now I know that me is fluid and shape-changing.

“that a man who can’t love but desperately needs to be loved is a dangerous thing indeed.