Leni was afraid to stay and afraid to leave. It was strange – stupid, even – but she often felt like the only adult in her family, as if she were the ballast that kept the creaky Allbright boat on an even keel.
Johnny’s with her now,” Mrs. M. said, touching his shoulder. For the first time in years, Tully felt like an outsider in this family. “I should be with her.” “Don’t you worry, Tully,” Mrs. M. said, watching her closely. “She’ll always need you.” “But things are different now.” “Of course they are. Katie’s married. You girls are on separate paths, but you’ll always be best friends.” Separate paths. There it was; the thing she should have seen but somehow hadn’t.
Time. It was the rack everything hung on: life, loss, hope, love.
Mama had chosen to dig for treasure through the dirt of Dad’s toxic, porous love, but not Leni. Not anymore.
You see, Loreda?” Elsa whispered. “They’ll hurt the people who threaten their business.” It was a long time before Loreda spoke, and when she did, her words were no comfort at all. “Sometimes you have to fight back, Mom.
God makes His choices without us.
Forever. That’s how long we’ll have an empty place at the table.
You gave me wings, Mom. Did you know that? I feel you here. Will I always?
Hope is a coin I carry, given to me by a woman I will always love, and I hold it now as I journey west, part of a new generation of seekers. The first Martinelli to go to college. A girl.
They were lovers who didn’t love each other, and that made talking easier.
No hero would ever do this. But books were only a reflection of real life, not the thing itself.
Fear changed everyone and everything, and yet, as always, life went on.
Some lives are not ours to hold on to;.
It was simply a matter of timing and perspective, what one saw.
Love could be more fragile than a sparrow’s bone.
Love doesn’t fade or die, baby girl. People tell you it does, but it doesn’t. Differently, maybe, a faded version, but he’s part of you now. And you are part of him.
As a girl, she’d waited impatiently for this unexpected weather, prayed for it for months, and no wonder. Covered in snow, Firefly Lane looked like something out of a fairy tale. The kind of place where nothing could ever go wrong, where a girl should be able to simply tell her family that she’d changed her mind.
But things changed fast. She knew that now. A horse could get old overnight and go lame. A friend could become a stranger just as quickly.
It was true that sometimes the support of only one person could make a difference.
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.
How could a place be as alive as Alaska, as beautiful and cruel? No. It wasn’t Alaska’s fault. It was hers. Leni was Matthew’s second mistake.