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it was essential that her girls grow up strong and educated, able to stand on their own two feet, unbowed by something as tricky and undependable as love.
despite her interest in love, weddings made her uncomfortable. They were too showy, too public. Deep love between two people was a private, wordless endeavor, and to place the lovers in fancy clothes in front of a crowd seemed antithetical to the nature of the thing.
His favorite part of history was its breadth, the sweeping connections between events and figures.
“You’re too young to really understand that life is short, but it is. I didn’t want to stop you when you were walking away from something that didn’t matter to do something that did.
We’re not separated from the world by our own edges.” Charlie set down his beer glass, empty now, and rubbed his hand up and down his arm, as an example of one of his edges. “We’re part of the sky, and the rocks in your mother’s garden, and that old man who sleeps by the train station. We’re all interconnected, and when you see that, you see how beautiful life is. Your mother and sisters don’t have that awareness. Not yet, anyway. They believe they’re contained in their bodies, in the biographical facts of their lives.”
My soulmate would save me, she thought. He would see me, and I would feel more solid. But this brought a fresh sadness, because if she ever did meet this man, he would never have known her father.
didn’t expect”—she paused—“for it to be part of everything, every minute. I didn’t know that you could lose someone, and that meant you lost so much else.”
“You’re depressed, not crazy. It’s not insane to be depressed in this world. It’s more sane than being happy. I never trust those upbeat individuals who grin no matter what’s going on. Those are the ones with a screw loose, if you ask me.
She never again wanted to answer the phone not knowing what terrible news might lie at the other end of the line.
When your love for a person is so profound that it’s part of who you are, then the absence of the person becomes part of your DNA, your bones, and your skin.
