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“Chloe,” he said again. “It’s your decision. But please. Please never kiss a man who doesn’t think you deserve his effort.”
“You have always been worth the effort.”
“I want my wife to intimidate me. I want to know that her enemies will all fall before her. That’s the kind of woman I want by my side. She had better be intimidating.”
“I like a woman of your height. I think you would snuggle against me very well. I like the idea of being able to wrap you up in my arms and keep you safe and warm in the winter. Or of being able to lift you up so that I could kiss you.”
“The place you are,” Mr. Fong said, “is not permanent. Stop waiting. Work with what you have and who you are to make what you want to be. I am waiting to see what you will discover.”
I want to stay. I want to grow. I want to be who you need, and if that means helping knead dough, I’ll do that. If I judge that you need someone who will put together a booth so you can take care of yourself and your father, I’ll find you that person. Right now, I judge that you need someone who will help you put down burdens, not take on more of them.”
“When you hurt,” he said, “it’s not your hurt alone either. It hurts me too. I can help, if you’ll let me.”
You’re the brightest light I’ve ever met.
Do you know how precious you are?”
All the things he worried about—about not being enough, about her coming to her senses—she was thinking the same things. She was thinking that he might leave her, or change his mind after he saw her naked. She was thinking all of that, and so she’d gathered up all her bravery and tossed it in his face, offering up the very things that frightened her. That was his Chloe: brave and sweet and giving.
I could only say that you make me feel like the home I want to live in.”
“I know you’re scared. I can’t blame you. I don’t know how to solve the problem of the entire world, and I wish I did for you. But life will not be harder with you; it will be wonderful.”
She imagined her fears of frailty and abandonment as a heavy, spiked ball deep inside her. But she’d dealt with fears before. She thanked them for keeping her safe, acknowledged them for the work they had done in bringing her to this moment. And then she imagined taking that spiked ball out of her, holding it out as if it were a dandelion puff…and blowing all that fear away, to scatter in the wind.
“I think you’d love him as much as I do. He’s very funny, and he makes my load lighter.”
you are more beautiful every time I see you. It’s positively outrageous. It should not be possible. And yet! Here you are.”
“It’s embarrassing how much I adore you. It’s a good thing I have absolutely no shame, because someone has to tell you over and over how lovely you are so that you will know it hasn’t changed.
“It’s not foreign. That sauce was fermented here, with yeasts found in Wedgeford. The idea came from here. It was made here. If tea is British, this sauce is British. If this sauce is British, I am British, and my wife is British, and my children will be British. I need not change myself to belong. I already belong; it is the rest of England that is out of step.”
