This was what happened. Abused boys became dangerous men. Those around them with a self-preservation instinct—even the people who loved them—started to move away.
There was something eternal about loss, something endless. You could always lose the things you had, but you couldn't always get back the things you lost.
There have been plenty of chances to close my eyes and go back to the sleep of my life as it was, but I hadn't taken any of them. Do I wish now that I had? It's hard to answer that question, as the wr...
The watercolor sky—silver fading to blue fading to black, the high slice of moon and glimmering stars—reminded her that she’d always wanted to paint but didn’t know how, was in some ways afraid of the...
The choices we made ... These were the right choices. They were positive and proactive. And it was, for a time, good for everyone, most especially our boy. But were these choices really? Or were they...
Something about her called away a piece of him, and it floated through the air and she breathed it in, and it was forever lost to her.
She could push inside or walk away. She could force a conversation, which might turn into a fight. Or just let him come to her when he was ready. She hesitated a moment, conflicted. Then she opted for...
Sarah’s death and how it haunted you, how you were swallowed by your guilt. But your mother was at least partially responsible for how you handled that situation as well. Let’s not forget that you wer...
No one ever talks about issues like dissociative identity disorder, fugue, or psychotic breaks in anything but the most negative light. No one ever talks about how the personality does this type of th...
Memory is elastic, and no two people have the same version of any given event. Our versions of our own lives are necessarily fictional to some degree, wouldn't you agree?
It was so much simpler to see other people's wrongs and make them pay. It was so much harder to have compassion, to see yourself in others and find forgiveness.
It was fear. Fear that, after all the years of protecting his health, his heart, his mind, setting bedtimes and boundaries, giving warnings about strangers and looking both ways before crossing the st...
I loved him so much. It didn't change all the reasons we couldn't be together, but it kept me returning to his body, kept my skin seeking his skin over and over again in the sad dance we did.
I didn’t see the point of judging and analyzing a single moment in someone’s life.
He wondered what it would be like to grow up in one place and stay there all your life, to forever be defined by your childhood relationships, to never know if you got to be the person you wanted to b...
Having love in your heart for someone is its own reward. Or punishment, depending on the circumstances.
Everyone always talks about how well mothers know their children. No one ever seems to notice how well children know their mothers.
Each of us extracted different people from our parents by our personalities and hence we had different experiences growing up.
Daily, she forgave his flaws, just as she knew he forgave hers. Maybe that alone was the foundation of a good marriage, an endless willingness to forgive and to love in spite of ourselves, an ability...
Choices turned to consequences, opinions turned to judgments, and admiration turned to envy. Envy curdled everything, like lemon in milk.