After dinner, we were all in the kitchen helping with the dishes, and I had the thought, Someone should go check on Momma. And that’s when I started to cry.
I hated being early. It was like having to wait for the same thing twice.
Have you ever read Bertrand Russell?” “No. Who is that?” “He was a mathematician. Anyway, he said, ‘Those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.’ I think that’s especially true with knowing oneself. As soon as you grow certain of something, you’ve closed your mind to other possibilities.
Being in love is a lot like being hacked.
Oh, Abram. Please don’t waste energy on this. Haters gonna hate, idiots gonna procreate.
Over the past forty days, I think I grieved for her every hour. In a way, I grieved for her before she died. And now that she was gone, I grieved for her still. Part of me wondered, however, if the grief would have been sharper, more debilitating, if I hadn’t been given the month to say goodbye.
I swear whatever pheromones Quinn Sullivan secreted were the equivalent of Janie-cat-nip.
Please let me know if I can ever be of service pushing you in a similar fashion.” I watched him take a deep breath, his gaze moving over my features – still warm with affection – and he said in a near whisper, “My momma once told me, you don’t need to be pushed in order to fall. I don’t think you’ll need to do much pushing, Jessica.
Absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. Whoever said that was a damn fool. Absence makes the heart suicidal.
Take it like a woman?” I smiled at the way she’d modified the take it like a man turn of phrase. “Yes. I’ll accept responsibility, apologize, be sensitive to your concerns, work to modify my behavior in the future, and suggest we try to find a way forward with minimal awkwardness. You know, take it like a woman.
These stubborn people and their demands were like cracker crumbs in my beard: irritating and flaky.
I’d been on the precipice of being brave, and nothing can make a person more foolish and vulnerable than bravery.
Soon all the leaves would fall, leaving this spot bare and brown. I felt like I was looking at the pinnacle of a particularly dazzling firework as it filled the night sky, just before it lost its shape and faded into darkness.
I should have listened to that woman with the ring. You don’t get a ring like deathbringer without knowing what’s what.
The only items she approved of in my wardrobe were my shoes. In fact, she borrowed a pair of orange faux-crocodile leather wedge heals with a turquoise bow at the toe. I wore a zebra printed spiked heal; the rest of my outfit came from her closet. She said I owned the clothes of a radiologist and the shoes of an OBGYN; which is like the medical doctor equivalent of saying that I dressed like a librarian with a propensity for fuckmeboots.
Moments of quiet ordinary, made extraordinary by sharing them with the woman I love.
The truth is, as an adult, I am always waiting to be left behind. I’m always ready to be discarded and, therefore, I spend a significant amount of time preparing for this eventuality. I lower my expectations, I don’t seek out meaningful relationships, and I don’t engage in any sort of real intimacy, physical or otherwise. Engage is the key word here.
Being right and doing right and staying the narrow course means never knowing the fragile line between humility and humiliation, never knowing how difficult it is to ask for forgiveness, never understanding the pain of forgiveness withheld.
Another toast to Alex. May he live long and prosper, and have lots of prospering, long-living babies!” Elizabeth raised her glass; all the toasts she’d led so far had been Star Trek related, and this was the second live-long-and-prosper toast, which was how I knew it was time to cut her off.
Conclusion: What I needed was a shower helmet. I was fairly certain a shower helmet didn’t exist. I’d have to make one. Biting the inside of my bottom lip, I searched the kitchen drawers closest to the gas range and found what I sought: aluminum foil, parchment paper, tape, scissors, and plastic wrap.