The Keeper of Happy Endings

by Barbara Davis

Pain has a way of hardening us, each new heartbreak laying down a fresh layer of protection, like the nacre of a pearl, until we think ourselves impenetrable, immune to both our present and our past. What fools we are to believe it.

There is a grief worse than death. It is the grief of a life half-lived. Not because you don’t know what could have been—but because you do. You realize too late that it was there for the taking—right there in your hands—and you let it slip away. Because you let something—or someone—keep you apart.