Sometimes love is a surprise, an instant of recognition, a sudden gift at a sudden moment that makes everything different from then on. Some people will say that's not love, that you can't really love someone you don't know. But, I'm not so sure. Love doesn't seem to follow a plan; it's not a series of steps. It can hit with the force of nature--an earthquake, a tidal wave, a storm of wild relentless energy that is beyond your simple attempts at control.
Deb CalettiI tended to give a book a chance and another chance and another, sometimes seeing it all the way to the end, still hoping for for it turn out different. Maybe I was confused about what you owed a book. What you owed people, for that matter, real or fictional.
Deb CalettiBecause thatโs how it works after something terrible has happened. You know this is true if something terrible has ever happened to you. A thousand objects take on new meaning. Everything is a reminder of something else.
Deb CalettiIt was a shut door, and shut doors meant things kept to yourself. There were reasons you kept things to yourself, and they usually werenโt good, happy, open-air sort of reasons. Still, I didnโt want to see behind that door. You think you want to know everything there is to know about everything there is to know. But you donโt. Not really. I had pried the lid off of the dark places of another person before, I had seen inside. Down deep. You donโt want to look at whatโs rotting there.
Deb CalettiI wondered if parents had an easier time with the secrets their children kept than children did with the secrets of their parents. A parent's secrets seemed like some sort of betrayal, where my own just seemed like a fact of life and growing up and away. I was supposed to be independent, but he was supposed to be available. Him having his own life seemed selfish, where me having my own was the right order of things.
Deb Caletti