Before Ever After Quotes

“She was still very aware that this journey would inevitably end one day, but if they watched what they ate, took care of their teeth, and held hands as they crossed the street, it would at least be a long one.”
― Samantha Sotto, Before Ever After: A Novel

“She knew she couldn’t blame her mother for her viselike grip. It was her father’s fault. He was the one who had died. She had been ten when cancer ate him away and her mother had started embracing her tighter. Shelley had learned two things growing up pressed flat against her mother’s grief: how to hold her breath and how to squirm away as soon as she had the chance. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her mother—she just couldn’t bear to listen to the echo inside her chest. Nothing was lonelier than the limping beat of half a heart.”
― Samantha Sotto, Before Ever After: A Novel