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“Back then it wasn’t proper to share one’s personal feelings. Not like today.”
Too caught up in my own misery, I didn’t have much left for anyone else.
Sometimes the things people don’t say hurt worse than the things they do.
The dissolution of our close, loving relationship had to have wrecked him, aged him in the frail way I’m witnessing now.
But you and your sister, the two of you could’ve figured out a way to work it out. You need each other. You always have. And I’m just afraid if you don’t fix this with her . . . if you let it go on too long . . . well, you have to heal your first family before being happy in another.”
“When I lost your mama, I stayed and took care of you girls.”
From an early age, I could tell I wasn’t like most girls. I saw nothing wrong with carrying around a shovel instead of a pocketbook, paying no mind to the stinging blisters that accompanied a day of picking fruit.
Most mornings, I rarely slipped on shoes, preferring to run through the knee-high fields in my bare feet.
There was nothing easy about our estrangement.
there was an emptiness without my sister that nobody could fill.
have enough sense to know things on the farm aren’t as cozy as they’d once been.
“I’ll always defend you. That’s what sisters do.”
“The Manleys are family.”
I made decisions to protect myself, to protect others, and I caused hurt and had been hurt.
“What you’re seeing is a girl filled with a lot of pain.”
I’m remembering what it’s like to fall in love, to have nothing but time ahead of you. To let it all in until it physically hurts.
And I begin to understand more and more what it means to be a parent. It’s hoping for the best while advising and consoling, knowing there are never guarantees. It’s saying the same thing over and over again until it sticks. Never getting tired. Never giving up. And it’s never walking away.
“What kind of person doesn’t like sweets?”
“Enjoy it while you can. When you get to be my age, it lands squarely on your butt.”
“You can’t even say ass.” “I don’t need to say it. There are far better options.”
I’m not a jealous person, never had a reason to be,
Let me let go.
I’ve been holding on for too long, and all it’s done is prevent me from moving on,
You’re the one being punished. Over and over and over again.”
you realize how much energy you’ve expended on hating me? And when you’ve succeeded at turning me against you, you dangle a carrot. And I take a step . . . and you slam the door. You’ve been afraid to let me in, but I’ve been just as afraid.”
holding on to those you’ve lost means you’re living in the past. And if you’re living in the past, you’re not really living.
Potty mouths are for the uneducated.
sisters love wholly and unconditionally,
literal.t
Typo?
“Marry us, Avery Beckett.”
And I think of all the storms we weathered to land in this place. The broken dreams. The prayers we cast off into the sky. And I know now that endings bring forth new beginnings, and letting go means you’re alive.
