Fool's Fate (Tawny Man, #3)

by Robin Hobb

we are the sum of all we have done added to the sum of all that has been done to us.

‘Woman, you’ve no idea what we have done, and I haven’t the courage to tell you. I’m a coward. I’ve always been a coward.’

Fifteen. All I could do was thank Eda that I’d never have to be that age again.

based

All of life, I wanted to tell him, is in our minds. Where else does it take place, where else do we add up what it means to us and subtract what we have lost? An event is just an event until some person attaches meaning to it.

“Old men know better. We remember all the times when we thought there would be more time, and there wasn’t. All the things I thought I would say to your father, someday, remain in my heart, unsaid. Let’s go.”

“Listen to me, and let me say this. These words have been choking me since I was first told what I’d done. I’m sorry, Fitz. I’m sorry for all I took from you, without knowing I had taken it. I’m sorry for the years I can’t give back to you. But—but I can’t be sorry I made Molly my wife, or for the children and life we had together. Have. I can’t be. Because I was the better man for her. Just as Chivalry was better for Patience, when all unknowing he took her from me.” He sighed suddenly, heavily. “Eda and El. What a strange, cruel spiral we’ve danced.”

Another consequence for which we must thank Fitz and his whims.

I fucking hate Chade

Who could imagine that death lasts so much longer than life?

Grief makes its own solitude, and I knew that I must endure it.

“Go away,” I said, and did not know the low growl of my own voice. She laughed, icicles shattering on stone. “Go away? Is that all? Go away? Such a keen vengeance for FitzChivalry Farseer to take upon me! Ah, that shall go down in tales and songs! ‘And then he stood, holding his beloved and said to their enemy, ‘Go away!’ ”

I burst out laughing

It becomes a part of you, like any scar. You will go on.”

As if I were sorting scrolls or storing herbs for Chade, I went through all the years since I had given half my life away, and reordered my experience of them. Half-passions. Relationships in which I had invested nothing and received it in return. Retreats and evasions. Withdrawal.

When had I lost sight of taking simple pleasure for the sake of pleasure?

home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there anymore.”

“Why would I do that? Retreat from life, and there is no opportunity for anything to get better…Oh.”

“I know. But there was no safe way to send word to you. And then, once you had…it was too late. If I had come back, it would have torn all of us apart.” She leaned forward, her chin cupped in both her palms and her fingers over her mouth. Her eyes were closed, but tears welled from under her lashes. “What a mess you made of it. What a mare’s nest we made of our lives.”

He smiled, and reminded me that no man could make time, but only use that which he was given wisely.