The Grace Year

by Kim Liggett

That’s the problem with letting the light in—after it’s been taken away from you, it feels even darker than it was before.

“We hurt each other because it’s the only way we’re permitted to show our anger. When our choices are taken from us, the fire builds within. Sometimes I feel like we might burn down the world to cindery bits, with our love, our rage, and everything in between.”

This is how they break us. They take everything away, our very dignity, and anything we get in return feels like a gift.

The men are too caught up in their rhetoric, screaming red-faced into the void, but the women stand in soft silence, as if they’ve been waiting for this their whole lives.