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Here’s what you did—if you were wise. You held on to these small, good moments, the small, good things, and tried not to be greedy for more. They’re like the pieces of expensive broken bowl lined up on the windowsill that catch the light. The
times when it hits the glass might be rare. You never knew where you’d find one of these moments, or when. Best not to go looking for them. Keep your eyes open and they’d appear. And for one fleeting moment anyway, you remembered
what happiness fe...
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It’s the light coming through the window at just the right angle, just for a moment there. You wish it never ended but you know it will. Take joy in
those moments the sun hits the broken pieces of the Dale Chihuly bowl just right, and never mind when it doesn’t. Leave it at that.
“It’s hard missing people,” Eleanor says. “But just think how much harder it would be if you had no one to miss.”
“You like my mom, huh?” he asks Guy. “Everybody should
have someone they love. I hope I have a girlfriend someday.”
“I could never have imagined my life without my children,” Eleanor tells him.
“Inch by inch, row by row, going to make this garden grow . . .”
“You know what they say,” Hans tells them. “‘Stronger in the broken places.’”
Dale Chihuly
In the end it’s Lulu, not Eleanor, who finds the words. “We have to keep trying, don’t we, Grammy?” she says. “Even when terrible stuff happens. We
have to keep hoping things will get better. We have to keep trying.”
“In spite of
everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
John Prine and Emmylou Harris and Roseanne Cash, Patty Griffin, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Eliza Gilkyson, Tracy Chapman, the Be Good Tanyas.
“That probably didn’t feel good,” Eleanor says. Acknowledge the feeling. Don’t ask too many questions. Listen. Whatever she does, Eleanor knows, it’s not for her to weigh in on her daughter’s marriage.
“When you can’t fix a problem,”
she reflects, “the best thing you can do is learn to live with it.”
Timmy had done the thing Eleanor never could. He was proud of his love for Eleanor,
and wanted to tell people about it. His mother, anyway. While Eleanor never told anyone about Timmy.
Eleanor thinks now that she had probably been in love with Timmy Pouliot, too. But one part of being in...
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the world know, not caring what people thought, because all that should matter, really, was how you felt about that other person. That you’d opened your heart to him. Timmy ha...
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been able to open her heart f...
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“My son was so proud of you,” Ruth Pouliot told Eleanor, when they met at the cash register. “Did you know, he had a copy of every one of your books?”
“You and me need to spend a night in the woods,” Toby tells him. “We’ll pitch a
tent. Cook up a steak over the fire. Sleep under the stars. That’s the life.” “What about wild animals?” Spyder says. Also, he hates bugs. “If you ask me,” Toby tells him, “it’s people that make the most trouble. Trust
me, you’re going to love ...
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“Number one, always bring water, more than you think you need. Number
two, wear the right shoes. Make sure you pick up your trash. Every single piece. Nature’s our most valuable treasure. You need to leave your campsite the same as when you got there.”
“If you ever get lost, stay put. That’s how they find a person if they’re lost. Some people, when they’re lost in the woods, they think they should keep walking around. That’s a bad idea. Then whoever’s looking for you
might keep missing you.”
“One more thing my dad told me,” Toby says. “Bring a plastic garbage bag. In case you’re lost, and you get cold in the night. Wrap that thing around yo...
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woods, with water and a t...
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“Try just sitting on a rock for a while,” Toby tells him. “See how it feels. Just you and the birds.”
“Orion always reminds me of my dad,” Toby says. “He had a belt, too.”
“So what do you think?” Spyder is lying on the ground now,
looking up at the stars. At just that moment, a shooting star streaks across the blackness of the sky. “It’s not so bad after all,” he says.
“You’ve got to think about your future, Spy,” Toby tells him. “It helps if you figure out what you really love.
Then get a job where you get to do that thing. Like for my mom, it’s drawing pictures and telling stories. For me, it’s taking care of goats. A person should figure out what they love. If you’re doing something you love, you won’t mind working hard.”
“So what are your favorite things, buddy?” Toby asks Spyder. “Like . . . what makes you feel good?”
“I don’t know,” Spyder tells him. “Video games, I guess. Reese’s Pieces. My BB gun.” Toby shakes his head. “I’m not
talking about stuff that’s fun,” he says. “I’m talking about something you love. Something that matters.”
“This will sound dumb,” Spyder says, in his usual low mumble. “I always thought I could be a good businessman.”
“I’d be, like, a banker or something. I’d wear a suit and a tie
and talk to people that want to get loans at my bank and figure out how they can do it.”
There’s always more to a person if you look harder. As a person who tends to get written off a lot, Toby understands this better than most.
“I’d push you around,” Spyder says. He speaks so softly Eleanor almost doesn’t hear.
Clean slate Here is something—one of the many things—that Eleanor loves about her younger son. He never writes a person off for being different. No doubt this comes from Toby’s experience in his own life,
