Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance Quotes

“I like knowing that my problems exist within a large and respected tradition of problems. That ever since the beginning of civilization, humans have been very upset.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“I knew enough by then to know that it was unfair to use a woman's past self against her.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“I was thinking that there was nothing better in this world than to discover someone who was weird in exactly the same way I was weird. To be weird and then loved for it.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“When nothing bad happened, nobody even noticed. When nothing bad happened, it was just an ordinary day. Sometimes, when Dad was yelling his loudest at me, this was what he seemed to be saying: Do you people know how many ordinary days I’ve provided for you?”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“Teachers didn’t like it when you didn’t participate, even when you were a spelling bee champion who got 100s on all the exams. Silence made them uncomfortable. Silence was like a big watery void that reflected back whatever they feared the most.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“We laughed a lot, but I don't remember about what. I just remember laughing. And wasn't that the most important thing? Wasn't that all a person wanted to remember?”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“It was death, I knew, waiting in the most unexpected places—inside Mom’s laughter, at the end of Dad’s toes, in the bright green leaves outside our bedroom window that couldn’t have looked more alive.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“That's what happens when parents die," he says. "All of a sudden you want an answer to every question you never thought to ask them.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“Thank you to my parents for always encouraging me to write about the hard things and for never shying away from the reality of our grief. You taught me how to see beautiful and funny things in unexpected places, and this is a gift I will cherish all my life. And finally, thank you to my brother Michael for the time on earth that we spent together, for always being silly with me when we were young, and for teaching me how much fun it is to spend an afternoon talking about nonsense with someone you love. ALSO BY ALISON ESPACH The Adults”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“Jealousy turned you mean. Jealousy turned you against me sometimes, on perfectly fun car rides to Grandma’s house—Why does Sally get the front seat?”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“But I was starting to believe in the things that upset me. I was starting to realize that it was much more likely that all the bad thing were true. That civilization was the worst. Because whenever we sat around the table, eating on place mats, like a goddamned family, Dad said, "So how was school?" and I said, "School was good,” and Dad didn’t believe me for some reason.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“But I didn't remind you of this, because that was the fun of being sisters. Sometimes, you got to be younger than you were, and I got to be older.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“Don’t look!” he kept shouting, and yet I looked, because you were my sister, and not looking felt wrong, as if I were leaving you all alone in your own death.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“In reality, children sometimes die. And as Americans, we don’t have a great way of dealing with this. Other cultures, they do. They understand this reality. In Ancient Greece, so many children died in infancy, people were advised not to love them until they turned seven.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“were not caught sliding out the dark minivan of our mother’s love. We were teenagers now, and we preferred, when given the opportunity, to suffer.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“His own father had sown and raised most of these plants, and suddenly, Billy wanted to understand why. Billy wanted access to his father’s brain in a way he never cared about before. “That’s what happens when parents die,” he says. “All of a sudden, you want an answer to every question you never thought to ask them.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“I can’t believe this storm,” she says. “The weatherman says it will be a bad one.” “The weatherman is paid to be dramatic,” I say. Right now, he is explaining how we will all die in the storm. He claims that if we do not drown in our beds, then our windows will shatter and slit our throats. If we do not die by glass, then we will die by blunt force, high winds, and waves that will take the house. Like someone cleaning a countertop, in one sweep, and everything is gone. If the house stands, then we have to consider other dangers, things like flooding and electrocution. And we should definitely not go downstairs to get that thing we think we need but don’t need at all, because downstairs, in the flooded basement, is where people die. “It happens all the time during hurricanes,” the weatherman says. The weatherman seems excited about all of the death that is to come; he makes it sound like the different ways of dying are like different trails up the mountainside.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“It wasn’t a long walk to the high school. But longer than Valerie had made it sound on the phone. I secretly understood why her mother kept insisting on dropping us off at the carnival. It’s no big deal, Mrs. Mitt said, we’re happy to drop you off, but it seemed weirdly important to Valerie that no one’s parents dropped us off, important that we were not caught sliding out the dark minivan of our mother’s love. We were teenagers now, and we preferred, when given the opportunity, to suffer.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“Want to go on the Ferris wheel?” I asked. “No,” Valerie said, and we immediately agreed that we both hated the Ferris wheel. It was too slow. Made us feel like we should be having a really meaningful conversation or getting engaged at the top. So we went on the Slingshot, which I loved. I loved the feeling of being flung into the air and dropping so fast that we left ourselves behind.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“Of course, walking out of Macy’s, we couldn’t imagine the way things would be different by the time the couch arrived. We couldn’t imagine that by then, you would be dead.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“What’d you pray for?” I asked. “Everything,” Billy said. “But mostly, forgiveness. You know. The usual.” “Oh yeah,” I joked. “That’s what I do. I just walk into the church and say, Give me the usual!” “One order of absolution, coming right up.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“I found it much more healing, to be honest, to take care of my father's plants.'
...He knew he had cared for something--truly and deeply--and he saw how those things came alive again. He had been so convinced that the only solution was to run away...The solution was always the opposite of what we expected it t be. The solution was to stay here, to plant a rosebush in the middle of Main Street. To wait, to have patience, to watch new life grow up all around him. And now, it's been years. Now, our town depends on Billy. Our town comes to him for help. They ask him to line the walls of the church for their weddings. They ask him to cover the graves of their dead. They have forgiven him.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“He couldn't bring himself to let the plants die. His own father had sown and raised most of these plants, and suddenly, Billy wanted to understand why. Billy wanted access to his father's brain in a way he never cared about before.

'That's what happens when parents die,' he says. 'All of the sudden, you want an answer to every question you never thought to ask them.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“Mom looked like this might make her cry. And maybe she would. Mom could cry while doing just about anything. She was a champion weeper. I don't know who gives out awards for this kind of thing, but Mom could win awards. I have seen her weep while vacuuming, I have seen her sob while standing in front of the microwave waiting for peas to defrost I have seen her break down in the mailman's arms. She even cried once while eating ice cream...”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“Their careers are all about pretending to know things they don’t really know that well. Knowledge is power, including knowledge a person pretends to have.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“People with fiancés love houses. Yet people without centers are afraid of houses. People without centers do not like thinking about mortgages, because people without centers do not value commitment, since they can’t even commit to themselves.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“made sure to sound angry, because that was how you always got away with lying. You sounded angry when you were lying, as if you were the one being betrayed. But”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“I had aged a thousand years overnight, Mom liked to say. That’s what death does to a person. Death destroys people, splits them open. Reveals who we really are inside, and it’s not a pretty sight. It’s quite bloody, actually. And your teeth—”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“But I knew then that anybody who chose to be alone had no idea what it really meant to be alone.”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

“Then we began our favorite game. Would you rather get a massage from Satan or have all your hair ripped off by a loved one? Would you rather make out with a prince who has an STD or a very healthy serial killer? Would you rather be stuck in a box for all of eternity alone or in a box with a Nazi?”
― Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance