The Virgin Suicides

by Jeffrey Eugenides

and our parents said nothing, so that we sensed how ancient they were, how accustomed to trauma, depressions, and wars. We realized that the version of the world they rendered for us was not the world they really believed in, and that for all their caretaking and bitching about crabgrass they didn’t give a damn about lawns.

Mary, like her sisters, appeared to have two extra canine teeth.

Trip had never even had to dial a girl’s phone number. It was all new to him: the memorization of strategic speeches, the trial runs of possible conversations, the yogic deep breathing, all leading up to the blind, headlong dive into the staticky sea of telephone lines. He hadn’t suffered the eternity of the ring about to be picked up, didn’t know the heart rush of hearing that incomparable voice suddenly linked with his own, the sense it gave of being too close to even see her, of being actually inside her ear.

None of the teachers insisted on their participating, with the result that all the healing was done by those of us without wounds.

The peach schnapps faded away as he sampled the juices of her inner organs, all slightly acidic with woe.

Like us, they became custodians of the girls’ lives,

“Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I’d forget everything that had happened. I’d go down the hall, and for a moment, we’d just moved in again. The girls were asleep in their tent in the living room.”