This Tender Land

by William Kent Krueger

“Listen, Odie, don’t you go caring too much about other people. In the end, they just get taken from you.”

Everything that’s been done to us we carry forever. Most of us do our damnedest to hold on to the good and forget the rest. But somewhere in the vault of our hearts, in a place our brains can’t or won’t touch, the worst is stored, and the only sure key to it is in our dreams.

How do you say goodbye when your heart is telling you how horribly wrong that would be? How do you let go when everything inside you is screaming to hold on?

“Rich people always find the places where they can look down on everyone else.”