The Last Thing He Told Me (Hannah Hall, #1)

by Laura Dave

Watching my grandfather work taught me that not everything was fluid. There were certain things that you hit from different angles, but you never gave up on. You did the work that was needed, wherever that work took you.

Maybe we are all fools, one way or another, when it comes to seeing the totality of the people who love us—the people we try to love.

We always have a choice. That’s what Grady said too. What does that even mean? That there is a right thing to do and there is a wrong thing to do. Simple. Judgmental. And if you are the person someone is asking that question about, you have chosen wrong—as if the world is divided between the people who have never made a big mistake. And the people who have.

This is the terrible thing about a tragedy. It isn’t with you every minute. You forget it, and then you remember it again. And you see it with a stark quality: This is what is required of you now, just to get along.

This is the thing about good and evil. They aren’t so far apart—and they often start from the same valiant place of wanting something to be different.

In one way or another, this is the deal we all sign when we love someone. For better or worse. It’s the deal we have to sign again and again to keep that love. We don’t turn away from the parts of someone we don’t want to see. However quickly or long it takes to see them. We accept them if we are strong enough. Or we accept them enough to not let the bad parts become the entire story.

It’s never about someone else the moment you realize it is up to you to get yourself to a better place. It’s only about figuring out how to get there.