The Unquiet Bones

by Loreth Anne White

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table. —W. H. Auden

feeling too much empathy threatens Jane’s grip on her own emotions. She can’t afford to crack. She’d split open, and her guts would spill all over the place—she’s not sure she’d ever be able to gather the parts back into her skin if she did.

We live in a society that places high value on resolving problems, on finding solutions, on ‘getting over’ things quickly. But when society is faced with people who are missing, there’s a disconnect, a discomfort.

They don’t know how to cope with people who are missing loved ones, or with situations that actually have no answers or resolutions. We should not be forced to chase closure,” she warns. “What we need to find are ways to coexist with our complex feelings, and to always remember that our reactions are completely normal.” She glances at Jane. “They’re not a sign of personal weakness.”

Their vow to each other came in the form of a terrible secret that the six of them guarded from the rest of the world. Him, Cara, Jill, Rocco, Mary, and Claude.

reasons. Heather struggled in many different ways. Mary has since done whatever she can to

The need to belong is a basic survival instinct more powerful than logic. Biologically it can override the most rational of thinking. To be cut out of the herd represents danger on some unconscious biological level that drove her teen brain. It’s how people get sucked into cults and become progressively more isolated from outside influences. That’s what happened with their group of six.

The things we do, for our children—to keep them safe, to atone for our own childhood sins, when inside our aging bodies we’re all really just still frightened and bullied children ourselves . . . Claude

look down. Knox’s world fades as his light goes out.

“Emotion is not weakness, Jane. Empathy is not soft. It’s what makes us most human. Most strong.”

And being a woman doesn’t mean you should fight harder to appear cold and professional. We need to change perceptions about what is powerful and strong.”