Did You Ever Have A Family Quotes
"He wakes to the sound of sirens. Many, loud, and very near."
"Before he kicks off the covers, Silas grabs his yellow knapsack from under the bed."
"The sky is pink and pale blue, and he traces a long trail of plane exhaust above him until it disappears over the roofline of the garage."
"Below him, four beefy crows land gracelessly on the lawn."
"His thumb and forefinger graze the knob, and he remembers the night before, where he was and what happened."
"She will go. Tuck into her Subaru wagon and roll down these twisting, potholed country roads until she finds a highway, points west and away."
"Putting daisies in jelly jars is hardly high-level flower arranging, more like monkey work if you want to know the truth."
"They arrive before she knows they are there."
"The first call from Winton came in December."
"I can see that I let myself slip. I had lost control of everything—my wife’s health, my boy, my business—and in this one space, this little New England motel room, the problems that existed could be fixed by someone else."
"My role, what I could do for him, had never been so clear. I had to be near him."
"It’s painful to admit, but when I remember that time, I see myself as a skittish fool, wringing my hands over every little decision and getting most of them wrong."
"I’d never been unfaithful to Kay in the eighteen years of our marriage. Never been seriously tempted, either."
"I remember finding an old Boy Scout manual filled with precise pencil drawings of animals—bears mostly, some gentle koalas and black-bear cubs, others angry, with teeth exposed and claws out."
"I remember looking out the window of my room in the winter, watching the wind blow on the surface of the white fields, lifting and whipping the snow into spirals, and in a flash you could see this force that was always there come to life and reveal itself."
"I’m ashamed to remember that we did not reach out to Lydia sooner than we did."
"We reached out to her as best we could, but we were in shock, and instinctively we closed ranks among ourselves. We were out of our minds and away from home. Our boy was gone."
"I’ve learned that grief can sometimes get loud, and when it does, we try not to speak over it."
"I listened to his lawyer, too, who told me that Luke would be in jail for ten years if he didn’t plead guilty."
"Silas sits on his bed and tries to regulate his breathing."
"He’s crashing from being on his feet and high all afternoon, and he feels like he’s hyperventilating."
"He leans against the side of the house and holds the rough wood siding for balance."
"What the fuck am I supposed to do? he thinks as he looks out to the field for any trace of Luke’s shirt or June’s hair."
"He sees nothing but the dark outline of the reception tent looming in the moonlit grass."
"Dad was a looker. Tall guy, big shoulders, eyes as green as grass."
"She worked as an assistant librarian at the public library in Ocean Shores until she died in 2000."
"She is standing at the sink, filling the kettle for tea, but she is already boiling."
"With words she can’t recognize, she has driven him away."
"The only picture of Luke with June is one she took in the parking lot of the church the night of Lolly’s wedding rehearsal."
"She experiences an unfamiliar mix of compassion and resentment when she thinks of Adam sleeping upstairs in the house."
"I’m glad I did. Just like I’m glad I went to Joe’s."
"The world’s magic sneaks up on you in secret, settles next to you when you have your head turned."
"The truth will set you free, dear Lydia, Winton said in his singsong way on that last phone call."
"June has driven as far as she can and this is where she will stop."
"The truth was something she had hidden or bent all her adult life, and she had suffered and caused others to suffer because of it."
"The world is as gray and white and featureless as it was when she got on the bus in Seattle after taking a cab from the airport."
"She steps across the front porch of Lydia’s apartment building and knocks on the door."
"Why were some decisions so tortured and then not?"
"What she had to tell June would not replace the losses, but it would make clear what had happened."
"Rebecca and Kelly will wear the rings I watched them put on their fingers when they said their vows."
"And no one will remember us, who we were or what happened here."
"Sand will blow across Pacific Avenue and against the windows of the Moonstone, and new people will arrive and walk down the beach to the great ocean."
"They will be in love, or they will be lost, and they will have no words."
"And the waves will sound to them as they did to us the first time we heard them."