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vestry.
The very thing that kept them together was also the thing that kept them apart.
Wechsler,
his nose was starting to take on the bulbous appearance of a seasoned alcoholic.
People, for some reason, chose only to highlight the good parts: the cute chubby cheeks and cute little socks—not the temper tantrums and lollipop bribery it took to get them in the socks.
Wolves know when they’re being raised by bears.
It was as if her entire body grieved on a sort of rhythm.
Who wanted to live in a world so easily toppled?
She had nowhere to go and still she was commanded to leave.
She missed him so deeply that the missing had become an organ. A throbbing, volatile organ. She curled into herself, into the pain. She deserved to feel it, and so when it came, she allowed it in, like a woman in labor.
Humans had a way of uprooting happiness. They found flaws in it, picked at it until the whole system unraveled.
Instead of being professionally distant, she’d festooned her life with the stories of her patients. She’d become too involved; she knew that now. An idle mind leads to mischief, her mother had said. And she’d paid, oh had she paid. She’d lost everything.
She straightened her back to accommodate her new determination.
bruised color of the sky
If they fought it would get ugly, because that’s how people with secrets stepped into the ring.
She was back to her old ways: sweeping pieces of her crazy under the rug.
Isn’t that something, Winnie thought. It’s possible to smile while breaking someone’s heart.
White wine was the medicine of the basic bitch, wasn’t it?
Drunks seldom looked inward, and when they did, they usually ended up drinking more.
She hadn’t understood at the time, hadn’t been able to spot in herself what she could so easily spot in others.
problematic partners had a way of dissolving love faster than it could regrow.
one day there wasn’t enough love left to cover the sins.
Couldn’t he see that she was struggling...that she didn’t want to be here any more than he wanted her to be here.
Fourth degree
It felt soiled now; a white shirt you could never get the blood stains out of.
delicate tattle-tale scars
skiff
Juno found this almost childlike in its innocence. Most people moved away from the homeless, not toward.
“Life happened. It doesn’t always happen the way you want.”
“Unfortunately, we aren’t the only ones in control of our story arcs. Outsiders have an influence, too.”
When you’re an adult you can control who you allow into your life, but you can’t control how they’ll behave once they’re there.”
It was hard to learn your place in the world when so many people told you different things.
In youth, people were plenty stupid—mostly because they thought they were so smart.
cinnamon freckles
everyone was afraid of their own existence. Afraid they were getting it wrong...afraid of what would come after as a consequence.
people made their own fate.
referring to parenting as a contract, but it was.
The most unbreakable contract, excruciatingly unrewarding...and yet...it was the thing that most drove her in life, the thing that she simultaneously hated and loved at the same time.
She didn’t hate being a mother, she hated parenting—being the enforcer, the teacher, an...
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There was an entitlement etched quietly into their minds, a sense that things needed to go their way.
was met with the cold indifference that he seemed to specialize in lately.
In her heyday she’d been the most popular person in any room, and that confidence, still ingrained in her personality, took a blow every time her son rejected her.
her newfound spine made of steel.
He thinks he can do whatever he wants to me and the kids, and then just cry about his issues and I’ll forgive him, just like your family always does. And you refused to see the much bigger problems he has because it wasn’t convenient for you.”
What was that saying? It didn’t rain until it poured.
They brought their children to her like an ingredient for a recipe they didn’t know what to do with.
saw parents harden their hearts against their own children—a
a lost cause, the problem child, the child who just couldn’t be reached. Emotional detachment was a survival skill. The person subconsciously muted their emotions in order to protect themselves.
detected both class and vinegar in that voice.
who’d been forced to alter her reality to accept that she’d outlived the child she’d grown in her own body.
