The Four Winds

by Kristin Hannah

Here, she sometimes thought, standing on land she cared for, here her child would flourish, would run and play and learn the stories told by the ground and the grapes and the wheat.

Although she hadn’t seen her parents for years, it turned out that a parent’s disapproval was a powerful, lingering voice that shaped and defined one’s self-image.

There was something she hadn’t known when she went into marriage and became a mother that she knew now: it was only possible to live without love when you’d never known it.

Heartache had been a part of her life so long it had become as familiar as the color of her hair or the slight curve in her spine. Sometimes it was the lens through which she viewed her world and sometimes it was the blindfold she wore so she didn’t see. But it was always there.

“I can prove the penny’s luck. It brought you to us,” Rose said. Elsa wet her dry, dry lips. “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?”

Elsa stared at Rose for as long as she could, memorizing everything about her, but at last, she had no choice. It was time to leave this place, this woman, this home.

“It’s not weak, you know. To feel things deeply, to want things. To need.”

It wasn’t the fear that mattered in life. It was the choices made when you were afraid. You were brave because of your fear, not in spite of it.

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.

“Men wear masks because they’re ashamed of what they’re doing,” Jack said through the megaphone. “They know this is wrong.”