Tom Lake

by Ann Patchett

There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well, until one morning you’re picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you’ve ever wanted in the world.

Saint Sebastian returned for the opening of Fool for Love. Oh, how I’d missed him! It is so clear to me now that he was the best of us. At first glance a person would have thought it was Duke who ruled the orbit, with Sebastian and Pallace and me as the circling moons. But Sebastian was the one who was necessary. His interest in what we said made us interesting, covered up our deficits.