22 Quotes by Jennifer Vandever

And who would advocate for her? Who would arrange her doctor appointments and throw out rotting bananas as she drifted into old age? Who would keep her photos, her jewelry, her horrible shadowboxes full of undergraduate angst, her hummingbird paintings, or even her tango shoes? Who would care about all the random junk she accumulated over the years and the stories that had attached to them?

They didn't talk the way new lovers often do, sharing everything; they were selective and wary. Sometime it seemed to her their relationship was mostly physical, something she enjoyed.

He turned to her and smiled. "OK. And you paint. Men come and go," he said, wagging a finger. "Be good to yourself. What you have? Inside? That's permanent. Any man doesn't see that, doesn't deserve you.

She realized children shouldn't be thought of as mere post-mortem media storage sites, but really, where on earth was she going to unload all her earthly crap if not upon someone biologically required to care?

After she packed her few bags into the back of her car and hugged him, Rosalind never saw him again. After a few weeks it was like she'd never known him at all, like summer friendships she'd strike up as a child when the family stayed a few weeks at the beach or another city. The friendship was site specific. She couldn't miss it any more than she'd miss the Eiffel Tower in her backyard. It was where it belonged, somewhere in the past.

It's the worst feeling," she said staring off vaguely, lost in another decade, "it's really the most shattering moment when you stop being enchanting to someone else. You're suddenly,,,just this person. And so is he.

The Friday afternoon of a teenager--had anything more wonderful existed?

Richard and I always called you the punisher. We never had to discipline you. Not like we did Hermione or Polly. Because you were so hard on yourself. If there's anything I want for you now, as a mother, even if I don't 'deserve' it is: I want you to be gentle. I want you to have compassion. For yourself and everyone. It's what every parent wants. If their any good. Which maybe I wasn't...

But now she regarded her sister with curious distance. She'd been so actively excluded from everything important to her she felt suddenly, intensely alone.