The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre

by Natasha Lester

“Fortune-tellers are for those who want to move only forwards,” he said at last. “Gods are for those who look backward to what they’ve done and believe in penance as a kind of absolution. I don’t know who those trapped in the middle should turn to.”

magazine targeted at poor orphaned girls who wear trousers in bars and forget to get married and actually like working and are too stubbornly self-reliant.

Forgiveness is a word made up by a man who expected it but never gave it in return. Survival is a word made up by a woman because it’s how she lives.

The effort you made to let events shape you and coerce you down a path, or the effort you made to shape yourself and steer yourself in spite of what happened.