The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 3

by Beth Brower

He smiled sadly. “You have a humour about you, a good deal of natural pluck, for lack of a better word. A general devil-may-care approach to some very serious circumstances.” I couldn’t tell in the moment, and can’t decipher now, if he meant his words to be a compliment or a subtle admonition. “I make a go of it, when I can. It’s not my disposition to…what I mean to say is, I learned a long time ago that my happiness has to be separate from the things beyond my control.” “Admirable,” he said, as if he didn’t believe me. “Necessary,” I answered, feeling the need to defend myself. “Most of us understand that in theory, but we don’t do it half so well as you seem to.” “It isn’t my nature to choose sadness if I can help it,” I said, shrugging to excuse my failure today. “Gloomy days stand in their place, but there is too much,”—I waved a hand about—“too much of everything else, I suppose, to live under them.”