In an Instant

by Suzanne Redfearn

“Though it does bother me that the people who seem to be distorting things the most also seem to be the ones suffering the least.”

I wonder about this, about whether our humanity is determined more by circumstance than conscience, and if any of us if backed into a corner can change.

It is easy to sit in judgment after the fact.

Certainly some seem worse than others, but no one is entirely inculpable.

“How do I get past it?” she mumbles, not necessarily to him. Hate. Hurt. Guilt. And grief. So much of it that I feel its thickness and its weight, like she is drowning and can’t breathe. “A single step at a time,” the man says, speaking from some profound experience of his own and with deep understanding, making me wonder if all pain might be the same regardless of its origin. “You’re still here,” he goes on. “So there’s not really a choice. An inch, a foot, not necessarily in the right direction, but onward nonetheless.”

“Until eventually,” he says, “the present becomes the past, and you are somewhere else altogether, hopefully in a better place than you are today.”

You only live once, and no one has any idea how long that once is going to be, so grab on tight and hold on for the ride and don’t worry about it and don’t look back.

Her body has gone soft, and so has her posture, as though distress has devoured her muscles.

she does not hate him, but I feel the hate she feels for herself for thinking she loved him and the immense burden she bears because of his betrayal.

Soar, Mo, reach for the stars or the moon or another universe altogether, and shine so bright you blind everyone around you, and though I am gone, carry me with you, but only as lightness and never as weight . . .

“We. It’s always been we. That’s how we managed to make it this far, and you don’t get to quit on us now.”

his concern for the living momentarily overshadowing his regret for the dead.

“A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.”

Anyone who doesn’t believe in chemistry is wrong. And anyone who settles for less sells themselves short.

In her eyes is the wish that things had turned out differently, along with the hard truth that Vance’s greatest loss that day was not his fingers.

conscience a terrible thing to discover when you’re sixteen and have lived all those years never having recognized it.

before he needed to give up one love for another.

and when he was forced to give it up, something went quiet in him.

The garage is a shrine of sorts, a place untouched by my mom’s giant eraser.

We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm.

benediction,

counting on the same naive presumption that a tacit agreement existed for my children to be cared for equally to their own.

regret is the most difficult emotion to live with, but in order to have regret, you need to have a conscience: an interesting paradox that allows the worst of us to suffer the least in the aftermath of wrongdoing.