More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
There aren’t many social advantages to being fat, but I’ll give it this, nobody ever thinks you’re a cat burglar.
Anyway, give me a trash heap over a grave any day. A grave tells you how people act when they’re on their best behavior in front of Death. Trash heaps tell you how they actually lived.
The underground children. Heh. I hadn’t thought of that in years. Gran Mae’s personal answer to the boogeyman.
“Someday you’ll get to an age where you die a little whenever someone doesn’t get your movie references.”
My phone informed me that it was absolutely talking to the internet, it was happy to talk to the internet, it loved talking to the internet, then as soon as I tried to check my email, it told me it had never heard of the internet and wasn’t entirely sure it existed.
Brad and his wife and I sat around trying to pretend that we were absolutely devout people who prayed all the time, yes sir, no heathens here.
I’m not great at performative emotions.
“I suppose no one would mind for a little while, would they?” “Who is going to mind? It’s your house.”
Like many family dynamics, it didn’t have to be healthy, it just had to work.)
Gran Mae believed strongly in coming out and debutante balls. I couldn’t have been much more than eight or nine at the time, but I was a child of a different era entirely, so I had a vague notion that Gran Mae thought I was a lesbian.
Lmao
having a cat around means that there are never any unexplained noises. If something crashes or thumps or goes bump in the night, you think, It’s that damn cat again, and don’t worry about
I was standing in the one shed in the universe that was not inhabited by cobweb spiders.
A small wrapped bundle looked promising until I unrolled it and found a dozen candles. They’d been partly burned down, but were otherwise just ordinary white candles. For use in case the power went out? Maybe? I had no idea why Gran Mae would keep them in the shed, though.
There was a bag of rock salt next to the candles.
Candles and rock salt? was she casting spells or summoning spirits?
She says the doctor says she’s fine.” “They always say that when you lose weight,” I said grimly. “You could be shooting heroin twice a day and if you lost weight, it’d be ‘Just keep doing whatever you’re doing!’”
Frankly, if Brad and Maria ever divorced, I was pretty sure Mom would keep Maria and tell Brad he was out of the will.
Ultimately, I’m still just a white woman from the South, with the accompanying combination of hypersensitivity and total obliviousness.
“I used to have nightmares about her,” I offered. “That she was grabbing my hand and stabbing it with rose thorns, and telling me to let them taste me.” I snorted. “Can you imagine?” “Uh,” said Brad. “Sam.” His voice had gone very odd suddenly. “What?” I said. “It was just a dream.” “No, it wasn’t. That happened.
“I didn’t let you out of my sight for years after that when we were at her house. You were my baby sister and I should have protected you.”
I got into archaeology because live people were too much trouble.”
But that’s life for you. Hate it, complain about it, it’s still happening.
I spent an incredibly depressing hour on my laptop looking up the symptoms of dementia. By the end of it, I was ready to weep for humanity, and also to check myself into a home the next time I lost my car keys.
I remembered standing in the garden, staring at the lady beetle and saying, There should be a lot more of you! Be careful what you wish for, I guess.
Real or not, monsters don’t bother you while you’re peeing. (This is one of the lesser-known laws.)
I said the first thing that came to mind, which unfortunately was, “I would help you pick that up, but I’m not wearing pants.” Mom made a small, pained sound. Phil looked up, probably involuntarily, looked at my bare calves, and immediately looked back down at the floor.
LOL LOL oh dear god....
“Do you think he’ll ever forgive me?” “He’s bound to,” said Mom. “After all, he’s Pressley’s grandson. He probably gets threatened with murder every day.” “Mom…” “Don’t shoot me!” “Mom—!”
(I am an endless font of horrible knowledge at parties, but I try to wait until after the food has been cleared away.)
Mrs. Goldberg looked between the two of us, probably wondering from our reactions if we were childhood sweethearts or members of the same gang.
Lmao
I don’t do anything with the roses. Mrs. M handles all that herself.” “She says she doesn’t do anything.” He snorted. “She’s being modest. Those roses are in fantastic shape. They’re healthier than the ones at the botanical garden. I’ve never even seen a Japanese beetle on them, and that’s practically black magic.”
I sipped my drink and plastered a vague, pleasant expression on my face, like every outsider at a party where everyone else knows one another.
Lol so accurate
I’m not surprised, though. They like to keep an eye on that house.” She took a sip of cider, but she was watching my mother’s face, not mine. My eyebrows shot up. Mom got that worried expression again and looked over her shoulder toward my grandmother’s house.
I found myself standing at a corner of the house, drinking my cider and idly checking the plants for insect life. (I am so much fun at parties.)
“You and Phil seem to be getting along better.” “He seems nice enough.” “He’s single.” “Oh god, Mom, don’t start.” I stifled a groan.
I knew that was coming
Also I had three roommates, which made date night difficult, although probably not as difficult as having wild sex with the handyman in my childhood bedroom, two doors down the hall from my mother.
She didn’t look as if she expected anyone to be lurking. Instead, it seemed almost as if she was looking to see if anything had changed.
“The roses say to say your prayers,” whispered a voice in my ear.
I caught a glimpse—just a glimpse—of something vanishing below my eye level. I jerked back, even though I knew it had to be part of the hallucination. It’s not real, it’s not real, your brain is just catching up to the rest of you …
“The roses,” she said. “They startled me. I wasn’t expecting to see them. You … ah … you picked them, right, Sam?” “Yes.” Oh, great job, you wanted to start a positive conversation about Gran Mae and now she’s got glass in her feet. A+ work. For your next trick, maybe you can just shove her down the stairs and be done with it.
I was expecting that reaction.
“Excuse me, but has my mother been losing her mind lately?”
there’s none in Mom’s backyard. It’s been bugging me.”
Haha she said bugging
“Anywhere there’s people, there’s a possibility of evil, wouldn’t you say?”
“I know you’re an archaeologist and it’s in your nature to go digging around in the past. But it’s best to let some things lie.”
I swung my feet over the side of the couch and rose petals fell off my shirt to the floor. … what the hell? I reached down to pick one up. Pink rose petals. For a moment I thought they had red stripes, and then I realized that my fingertips were bloody. No, really, what the hell?!
There were at least a dozen rose petals on the ground, leading in a trail to the sliding glass door. How did they get there? The roses had been in the kitchen.
I lived without health insurance long enough that I am far more likely to try to sleep off anything short of decapitation.
I flashed back to Gran Mae telling me to pick up my room. You live like a little piggy, Samantha! Nobody wants to marry a little piggy! I’d said, “Pigs are one of the smartest animals on earth. Oink, oink.” I was that kind of ten-year-old.
Lol
“Life support? Nobody wants to marry someone on life support!”
“I think I left a blood offering on every plant in the garden. I don’t know how Gran Mae did it. Pact with the rose gods, maybe.” Mom didn’t laugh at this.
There was a shape in the shadow of the rosebush that I’d never noticed before. A very odd but very distinct shape. It looked exactly like a human hand, and I mean exactly. Five pale fingers curving over the roots of the rosebush, the thumb dappled with a splash of light through the leaves. A long white wrist vanishing into shadow.
