The Vanishing Season Quotes

“We heal, mostly, but even scars can bleed.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“When everything is spiraling out of control, no one can dig in and hold steady. Not really. They lash out, desperate to grab onto anything. They lash out.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“We bear responsibility for our tempers, most especially when someone is harmed by accident. Shorter tempers require greater care from those burdened with them.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“there’s a difference between being unashamed of your scars and putting them out for everyone to comment on.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“even accidents need to hold their full weight of consequence.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“If you ever hit me, I will never downplay it. I will face it, own it, and explain that to everyone who wants to know why I just shot you in the dick.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“Life has a way of mocking our choices.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“I’m still struck by the extraordinary kindnesses people are capable of, not just for the Eddisons but for all the families.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“I wanted it to fit, or maybe I wanted to fit, but I didn’t belong. Instead, I just felt like a fraud for having these visible pieces of the culture without having any of the rest.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“But if you want a change to last, you do it the hard way, not the way that feels better in the short term.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“She desperately loved the idea of a daughter, but she’s never known you, Eliza. She’s never known you for the extraordinary daughter you are.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“You were so vulnerable to exactly that kind of man, because you’d already spent your whole life trying to understand why your mother didn’t seem to love you.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“You couldn’t see it, Eliza, all the ways he was hurting you.” He sighs. “Shira and I were beside ourselves, but you couldn’t see it. He was isolating you from people, shifting who you were allowed to be around. He was always making those little digs about your job, the ones that were supposed to come off as jokes but never did. Like the ones he made all the time about what you were eating, and you got so thin. And all that mess about the wedding . . . you were so unhappy, ahuva, but he had you so twisted around about everything, you hardly knew which way was up.”

“I should have seen it,” I whisper.

“How could you? It doesn’t matter if you’re trained to see it in others; it’s different when it’s you. He was very good at it. It’s not like he slammed into it all at once either. He worked up to it too slowly for you to see. And you were never going to see it, Eliza. Not when he wasn’t the only one doing it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your mother’s been doing it your whole life.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“You couldn’t see it, Eliza, all the ways he was hurting you.” He sighs. “Shira and I were beside ourselves, but you couldn’t see it. He was isolating you from people, shifting who you were allowed to be around. He was always making those little digs about your job, the ones that were supposed to come off as jokes but never did. Like the ones he made all the time about what you were eating, and you got so thin. And all that mess about the wedding . . . you were so unhappy, ahuva, but he had you so twisted around about everything, you hardly knew which way was up.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“People hurt each other, especially when they love each other.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“She can only be happy by being unhappy.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“We have to step away for bits of time, because we’re not going to find anyone or anything if we’re hospitalized after a collapse. Common sense wars with need and leaves you feeling guilty for taking care of yourself.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“You can be sad today. How many of us allow ourselves to just sit with a feeling like that rather than try to conquer it or push it out of the way?”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“You were the girl who read through football games, weren’t you?” “No, I was the girl playing the trumpet in the itchy band uniform.” “You play trumpet?” “Not anymore.” I unwrap the sandwich. Ooh, turkey and bacon. “Of course, if you ask my band instructor, I didn’t play it back then either.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“All right then."
He looks a little flummoxed, thought.
"Would it make you feel better if I protested so you could use all the arguments you clearly mustered?"
"Hush.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“Even once we accept they don’t love us, it does matter, because they made us feel like we were wrong to want it.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“I’m not quite too tired to drive, but I’m tired enough I don’t feel entirely comfortable doing it. It’s the state of over-attention, where everything feels a little too real but also not-real. Liminal space, as Shira likes to call it. Points of transition where the sense of time and reality skews, making us more open to new experiences.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“There have been cruelties as well, and harassment of all sorts, but the sincere kindness of strangers has been unfathomable in many ways.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“Because if you’d stopped hoping, you wouldn’t work so damn hard to give this day, or better days, to others.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“You stopped expecting this day to come. If you’d stopped hoping, you wouldn’t be in CAC.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“He may only have a few months left, but he’s determined to live them as much as possible. He’s”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“When anybody asks, they say they’re still discussing whether or not they want to pursue treatment. It’s an easier answer, I think, than trying to explain why declining treatment is not the same as giving up on life.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“You had no way to know or prevent this. I’m sorry for what you’re going to go through as this breaks, for the harassment that will invariably occur. It shouldn’t happen, and it is undeserved. My sister’s death is not yours to carry.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“Sorry, the heels come off at eight whether I’m done for the day or not.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season

“It doesn’t matter how often the words are said. He—and Ian and Bran and so many others—will only accept them when they can, and not a moment before.”
― Dot Hutchison, The Vanishing Season