Small Mercies

by Dennis Lehane

Change, for those who don’t have a say in it, feels like a pretty word for death. Death to what you want, death to whatever plans you’d been making, death to the life you’ve always known.

He tells Julia about his father, who he’s certain never loved him, and his mother, who loved him twice as hard to make up for it, tells Julia Fennessey most of what he can remember about his life in all its highs and lows, all its dashed dreams and surprising joys, its little tragedies and minor miracles.