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“What are they so scared of?” Lizzie sighed. “All of them are scared of losing something;
SISTERHOOD “I’m glad you have joined the sisterhood and will be adding your voice to the cry.”
if you want opinion to define what something means then you should at least consider all sides. Not all sides have a newspaper to speak for them.”
but words are meaningless without action.” “And sometimes action can make a lie of good words,”
I fell in love with you word by word. I’ve always loved the shape and feel of them, the infinite pairings. But you showed me their limitations, and their potential.”
“I had to choose,” he said. “Between a ring and the words.”
No more words passed between us. He didn’t ask, and I didn’t answer, but I felt those moments like the rhythm of a poem. They were the preface to everything that would come after, and already I was plotting it out.
I cannot overstate the benefits of a busy day for an anxious mind or a lonely heart.
“It is not for you to judge the importance of these words, simply to allow others to do so.”
BONDMAID Bonded for life by love, devotion or obligation. “I’ve been a bondmaid to you since you were small, Essymay, and I’ve been glad for every day of it.” Lizzie Lester, 1915
When my lids close, I will be spared the worst, and it will be an image of you that ushers me to sleep.
For me, Esme is like a favourite word that I understand in a particular way and have no desire to understand differently.
Was that what it meant to be a daughter? To have hair that smelled of your mother’s? To use the same soap? Or was it a shared passion, a shared frustration?
“Words define us, they explain us, and, on occasion, they serve to control or isolate us.
Where, I wondered, are the women in this story, and does it matter that they are absent?
This novel is my attempt to understand how the way we define language might define us.
