I’d always thought of him as one of those fat catfish swimming in the Catawba River, trudging along the bottom with his belly in the mud, his mouth open, feeding on whatever he came across.

But that tree that grew up between them was just a gnarly old thing with thick roots that ran deep and wild and tore at the ground until it opened up, and, once it did, Julie found herself clear across a great divide from Ben, so far apart that they couldn’t even see each other from where they stood.

It don’t get no easier to lose somebody you love,” Ella said. “No matter how long it’s been.

The trees along the road were mad with crows. The birds ruffled the leaves like a heavy wind, and their cries seemed to bore into Verchel’s ears.

There is an old saying that every story, even your own, is either happy or sad depending on where you stop telling it. I believe I’ll stop telling this one here.

But since then I’ve learned to just go ahead and take fairness out of the equation. If you do, things stand the chance of making a whole lot more sense.

It was like Mama was lost in the desert and had gotten so thirsty that she was willing to see anything that might make her feel better about being lost.

I'd always thought of him as one of those fat catfish swimming in the Catawba River, trudging along the bottom with his belly in the mud, his mouth open, feeding on whatever he came across.

You exist whether it is written down or not, and you are dead whether it's written down or not too.

It's a good thing to see that people can heal after they've been broken, that they can change and become something different from what they were before.