I did not feel lonely, but I felt the memory of loneliness.
He was so appealing, standing there, so useful and solid and familiar, I wanted to fall into him and demand to be forgiven.
Of course it is upon the rubble of ancient history that the present stands.
How lucky I am that he turned up across the dance floor all those years ago and believed, then as now, that we were meant to build a life together.
Perhaps it was the same cocktail of self-indulgence and abandon and want—and an unaccountable wish to be free, if only for a little while—I discovered in myself last summer. I
People say a mother is only as happy as her least happy child. But what if the state of that child's happiness has become a mystery? What if that child is no longer a child but a young man who has rem...
I hoped with every mothering cell in my body. I hoped with every scrap of power and will, every particle of knowing you, the years and years of you, the joy and hurt, the work and pride, the worry and...
Walking into oblivion to claim love.
There’s the past again, keeping its foothold, wreaking its havoc.
Some new power had risen in me. All my tight cavities were opening and warning voices were fading. I had only myself to worry about, and if I wanted, I could simply choose not to worry at all.
But this time it was her other self I saw, not the dark fairy of want but a middle-aged woman, like the woman I am now, plain, chastened, mortal. The
But also because the London I paint is colored by the pencil I hold, and the pencil I hold wants a picture with an ending we can all bear. Malcolm
He did not often listen when I talked, so I ended up telling him things more than once, after a while not bothering to tell him much at all.
Your father flung his windbreaker over his shoulder and the zipper stung my cheek, the beginnings of retribution, perhaps, for a past that had long ago laid down the invisible blueprint of our future.
Want like a small dirty creature, waiting all the years of her marriage for a sign. Patrick was not the sign; she herself was, her own blue dress, her tiny waist, her small, round breasts. And her wan...
I was naked. I was human. I was fallible. I deserved to be forgiven. We all did. I
I carried on drinking excessively as long as I could—right up to the moment I decided to become a mother. It was not so difficult, then, to stop. The stakes changed, and you grew inside me, and the mu...
He somehow knew it was more important to be reassuring, to seem to be in command of the situation, than to be right. And he was always willing to give in when he was found out to be wrong. The
Emme. Like the letter. Like an eclipse. A force of nature that keeps coming around, taking out the lights.
Perception is often loath to give up its stranglehold on the mind