It's special, grandparents and grandchldren. So much simpler. Is it always so, I wonder? I think perhaps it is. While one's child takes a part of one's heart to use and misuse as they please, a grandchild is different. Gone are the bonds of guilt and responsibility that burden the maternal relationship. The way to love is free.

It's a terrible thing, isn't it, the way we throw people away?

We're all unique, just never in the ways we imagine.

People might think writing is a hard business, but it's nowhere near acting.

Rejection is a cancer, Edie. It eats away at a person.

It was the sibling thing, I suppose. I was fascinated by the intricate tangle of love and duty and resentment that tied them together. The glances they exchanged; the complicated balance of power established over decades; the games I would never play with rules I would never fully understand. And perhaps that was key: they were such a natural group that they made me feel remarkably singular by comparison. To watch them together was to know strongly, painfully, all that I'd been missing.

Adults weren’t supposed to understand their children and you were doing something wrong if they did.