The Four Winds

by Kristin Hannah

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.

“I want to see the ocean,” Loreda said. It was a game they played, imagining other lives they would someday live. She couldn’t remember now when they’d begun; she just knew that it felt more important these days because of the new sadness in her father. At least it felt new. She sometimes wondered if his sadness had always been there and she’d just finally grown up enough to see it.

Elsa had made a point of never seeing them or speaking to them again, but even so, their absence caused an ache that wouldn’t go away. Apparently you couldn’t stop loving some people, or needing their love, even when you knew better.

Elsa hadn’t known until right then how much difference a friend could make. How one person could lift your spirit just enough to keep you upright.

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.”

We fought, we struggled, we hurt each other, so what? That’s what love is, I think. It’s all of it. Tears, anger, joy, struggle. Mostly, it’s durable. It lasts. Never once in all of it—the dust, the drought, the fights with you—never once did I stop loving you or Ant or the farm.”

Maybe she was tired of hiding from people, of thinking she wasn’t good enough; she’d filled that well for years and now it was empty. The weight of it was gone.

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.

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