You will always miss her. I know that from experience. There will be days – even years from now – when the missing will be so sharp it takes your breath away. But there will be good days, too; months and years of them. In one way or another, you’ll be searching for her all your life. You’ll find her, too. As you grow up, you’ll understand her more and more. I promise you that.
Elsa thought of all the laundry she’d done in her life, the joy she’d always taken in hanging sheets to dry, but never until now had she fully, deeply appreciated the sheer physical pleasure of clean sheets on naked skin. The fresh smell of lavender soap in her hair.
In earlier years, she had dreamed of boldly reaching for him, changing how they touched each other, exploring his body with her hands and her mouth; then, upon waking, she’d felt frustrated and swollen with a desire she could neither express nor share. She’d waited years for him to see it, see her, and reach out.
You can’t unlove someone even if you want to, even if he breaks your heart.
He was a shooting star and he blinded me with his light.
A life, not merely an existence. That was her dream: a world in which her life and her choices were not defined by the rheumatic fever she’d contracted at fourteen, a life where she uncovered strengths heretofore unknown, where she was judged on more than her appearance.
More and more often they talked about the old days, back when they’d been too young to know that they were young, when the whole world had seemed open to them and dreams were as easy to pick as daisies.
Even if they didn’t speak of their love, or share their feelings in long, heartfelt conversations, the bond was there. Sturdy.
I’ll drink to that,” Nina said. “You’ll drink to anything.” “Indeed I will. It’s one of my best traits.
She’d heard it from him all her life; just once she wanted to hear him say that Mom should try harder. “I will,” she said, completing their little fairy tale as she always did. And she would try. She always did, but she and her mother would never be close. There was just too much water under that bridge.
Dreams. They’d had so many of them, and a surprising number had come true. The funny thing was that she hadn’t valued them all highly enough when she’d had the chance.
The truth was, she had never been able to understand how a woman could be capable of passionately adoring her husband while simultaneously despising her children. No, that wasn’t right. Mom didn’t despise Meredith and Nina. She just didn’t care about them.
What in the world was more restorative than a child’s love?
She wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, or when, but distance seemed to be spreading between them like spilled ink, staining everything.
But I was wrong and stupid. I do love you. I love you and I miss you and I hope to hell I’m not too late because I want to grow old with the man I was young with.
Time. Hers had gone too fast. She’d only just discovered who she was.
Loreda knew she couldn’t blame her mother for Daddy abandoning them, or not entirely. That was the sad, sorry truth she’d come to after a long and sleepless night. Daddy had left them all.
Relying on people for comfort had never felt natural to her. The last thing she wanted was to give someone the power to hurt her.
She had to believe there was grit in her, even if it had never been tested or revealed.
But for now, I am an explorer again, made bold by hardship and strengthened by loss, going west in search of something that exists only in my imagination. A life different than one I’ve known before.