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Apparently you couldn’t stop loving some people, or needing their love, even when you knew better.
The love, it comes in the beginning of her life and at the end of yours. God is cruel that way. Your heart, is it too broken to love?” “Of course not.” “So, you go on.” She shrugged, as if to say, Motherhood. “What choice is there for us?” “It just … hurts.”
I’m in awe of her fire. Even if I’m the one who gets burned. I just … want her to be happy.
“I’m just—” “A mother.”
“You are the daughter I always wanted,” Rose said. “Ti amo.” “And you are my mother,” Elsa said. “You saved me, you know.” “Mothers and daughters. We save each other, sì?”
“Do you ever get tired of being strong?” “Oh, honey, of course.”
“It is such an honor. Why … I never expected such a thing. A woman President.”
A library. Magic.
“You are of me, Loreda, in a way that can never be broken. Not by words or anger or actions or time. I love you. I will always love you.” She tightened her hold on Loreda’s shoulders. “You taught me love. You, first in the whole world, and my love for you will outlive me.
“We don’t need to learn about what old rich men did more than one hundred years ago. The world is falling apart now.”
The things your parents say and the things your husband doesn’t say become a mirror, don’t they? You see yourself as they see you, and no matter how far you come, you bring that mirror with you.”
“Cages. In America. The big farmers and their corrupt coppers and citizens-turned-vigilantes put your fellow Americans in cages
my life I’ve been told to make no noise, don’t want too much, be grateful for any scrap that came my way. And I’ve done that. I thought if I just did what women are supposed to do and played by the rules, it would … I don’t know … change. But the way we’re treated…”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m scared.” “But we’ll do it anyway.”
Love is what remains when everything else is gone.
A warrior believes in an end she can’t see and fights for it. A warrior never gives up. A warrior fights for those weaker than herself. It sounds like motherhood to me.
Mommy. That one word brought everything back: Elsa rocking Loreda to sleep, reading her stories, teaching her to make fettuccine, whispering Be brave, into her ear.
She’d thought she had a lifetime to show them her love. Time. Hers had gone too fast. She’d only just discovered who she was.
She had counted on a lifetime to teach her children what they needed to know, but she didn’t have that gift of grace and time. Still, she had given them what mattered: they were loved and they knew it. Everything else was decoration. Love remains.
