50 Quotes by Jeanine Cummins

Luca feels unmoored from the boundaries of time that have always existed.

As Rebeca reveals what scraps of story she does have to Luca, he starts to understand that this is the one thing all migrants have in common, this is the solidarity that exists among them, though they all come from different places and different circumstances, some urban, some rural, some middle-class, some poor, some well educated, some illiterate, Salvadoran, Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican, Indian, each of them carries some story of suffering on top of that train and into el norte beyond.

I only meant because sometimes the experience of reading can be corrupted by too many opinions.

Everything we’ve been through?” Soledad says. “It’ll all be worth it. We’ll leave it behind and have a new beginning.” Rebeca looks at the floor but her eyes are unfocused. “Like it never happened,” she says. They.

She feigns confidence in the way all mothers know how to do in front of their children. She wears the fierce maternal armor of deceit.

Less than two weeks ago, dirt on the floor in her hallway was a thing that could annoy her. It’s unimaginable. The reality of what happened is so much worse than the very worst of her imaginary fears had ever been. But it could be worse still.

She doesn’t have the reservoir of space to take anything else into her brain.

Late into the night she reads, and the lamplight falls in a soft circle across her tented knees, across the warm blankets, across Luca’s casting breath. In their new home, Lydia rereads Amor en los tiempos del colera, first in Spanish, then again in English. No one can take this from her. This book is hers alone.

Marta’s death changed everything, of course. It changed everything.