Drowning

by T.J. Newman

“Godspeed, fourteen twenty-one.”

She was still unlearning her learned helplessness.

A hush fell over the plane. It felt like a floating haunted house.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Andy said. “We’re about to fucking drown and you’re worried about my fucking language? Fuck that. And fuck you,”

The additions to their home were like hashes on a doorframe marking a child’s height. The marks are what get noticed—but what matters is what happens in the spaces between them. The experiences in those spaces, the cards life deals you, that is what makes a house a home. That’s what makes a marriage. That’s what makes a family. It’s also what breaks them.

He also believed most people weren’t half as smart as their job title said they were.

“In my professional opinion,” Jasmine said, “what Molly’s trying to say is: ‘I wish a bitch would.’ ”

loving someone is easy. Respecting them is a choice.

And that was all life was. Shifting the balance, every day, to make room for joy and grace in whatever circumstances you’ve got before your time runs out.

“Time is luck. You grab it. You hold on tight. And you be there. You have to be there for it. It’s going, with or without you. And no one knows for how long. No one knows.”