annmarie

“I had begun to notice that, just like my new friends, other people laugh about their loved ones' observance of peculiar habits, but with the same fondness of possession. She wears a coat even in the summer. He won't talk to anyone before breakfast. I realise, now, that my mother could still have loved me, if she had chosen to. It is possible to know the oddities of people and to love them regardless. I want this to comfort me, but it does not. I had always thought that I was an unloved child purely because of my peculiarities. Since Vita and Rollo and their cheerful celebration of my strangeness, I wonder if there was something else Ma witnessed in me, something that she found not simply different, but abhorrent.”
― Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow, All the Little Bird-Hearts