When She Returned

by Lucinda Berry

“Matthew twenty-five, verses thirty-five and thirty-six, sums up our entire philosophy. Jesus said, ‘I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me . . . Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me.’ That’s how we live our lives, and it’s the closest thing we have to a creed.”

“It’s just the small-town mentality of people not liking change and being resistant to anything that doesn’t fall within their traditional ideologies.”

But I wanted him to grow and change, experience new things too. His contentment with sameness was more maddening the older I got. How could we live our lives based on decisions we’d made when we were seventeen?

The problem with having a fairy-tale relationship story was how much other people were invested in keeping the fairy tale alive. It wasn’t just our story—it was everyone’s.

“Once you’ve told a story so many times, it just becomes the truth.” “But you passed the polygraph . . .” My voice trailed off, thick with unspoken meaning. He had passed the polygraph with flying colors; only seasoned liars could pull that off.