The Cutting Season Quotes
"A reminder, really, that Belle Vie, its beauty, was not to be trusted."
"It’s not something I’m proud of, skipping out like that. But very little in Caren’s life, at that point, was."
"Truth is, avoiding the slave village was an old, old habit of hers, and one that long predated the job."
"She had, for better or for worse, made a life here."
"Mornings like this, she didn’t try to fight the romance of the place."
"She was always careful not to leave tire tracks in the slave village."
"But it is absolutely true that one morning during her first year back, she stood at the mouth of the village, staring down the length of dirt road."
"The space opened itself up to her only after she privately acknowledged its power. It was the only way forward."
"She wondered what her mother would have made of that, if she’d lived to see it."
"She had gone farther and risen higher than anyone in her family might have dreamed."
"She must have missed you something awful when you went off."
"It’s more likely than not, ma’am, that we’re talking about a murder that happened here last night, on the grounds of Belle Vie, while you and your daughter were sleeping."
"I’m sorry, but what does this have to do with your investigation?"
"She knew the trouble that was coming, for all of them."
"You asked me if I was a lawyer, and I answered the question correctly."
"Freedom weren’t meant nothing without Belle Vie."
"I just thought it would mean a lot if I could tell them their jobs were safe."
"I’d still very much like to have sex with you."
"We need stability right now, more than anything."
"People in this state know what we’re about, the Clancys."
"I think you owe us a little of your trust on this."
"I have never asked you to raise Morgan alone. Let’s be clear about that."
"You think I made all this up just so I could see you again?"
"You said it was safe down here, you said she’d be in a good school."
"This is not a job. I don’t know what this place is, but it’s not a job."
"In each drawer, there were production records and bills of sale, registering the bounty of each year’s harvest."
"It was obvious to her now that she’d been avoiding this quiet confrontation for years."
"There were handwritten notes on loose sheets of coarse paper, marking, in great detail, the difficulties of finding hardy men and women to work the fields."
"The organization was sloppy, which surprised Caren."
"One of the printer’s cabinets—made of aged oak, the lacquer peeling in some corners—held farm records, arranged by decade, going forward into the 1930s."
"Jason stayed, right here at Belle Vie, in the shadow of the big house, working the same land he’d farmed since he was a child."
"His life and his labor now belonged freely to him, and for a brief, bewitching moment, Caren tried to picture how her life might have been different if her distant ancestor had, back then, struck a path for something wholly new, a way of life that led all of them out of the fields."
"She tried hard to put herself back at her mother’s feet, nights Helen used to braid her hair, nights they slept back-to-back on a shared bed, nights Caren should have paid more attention."
"She would never get them back now and could recall few of the details, only the memory of her touch, the smell of olive oil on her hands, which she rubbed onto her raw knuckles after work in the kitchen."
"He’s just like his daddy, that one. The Clancys, they’ve always looked out for black folks."
"It was a tradition that had taken on a special tenderness on the other side of Emancipation."
"I don’t believe Donovan killed anybody, sir."
"You’re smart, and that guy’s paper thin. He knows you see right through him."
"Don’t let them make you into something you’re not."
"Freedom weren’t meant nothin’ without Belle Vie."
"She didn’t care. She was seeing her own story."
"They’re proof somebody else was out there that night."
"I’m not sure I understand why this wasn’t brought to my attention earlier."
"The Sheriff’s Department thanks you for bringing this in."
"The district attorney is going to put this evidence to a grand jury."
"It seemed they were veering toward a larger discussion of what would happen after the Whitman wedding."
"I’m not sorry for what happened between us the other day."
"There would be time to sort it out, but right now she felt an almost primal urge to get out of there as fast as she could."
"She saw a flash of lightning reflected in his blue eyes."
"And then a crack of thunder, as loud as a gunshot."
"She swallowed hard, then said softly, 'Do you think I could use your telephone?'"
"Caren could see that he had started to sweat again."
"Caren felt a whisper in her throat. 'What did you do, Bobby?'"
"I’m not going to hurt you, Caren," he said, stepping back."
"His life had come down to this fishing lodge, this one room by the river, where he lived alone."
"She ain’t have no business out there no way," he said acidly.
"She left him alone, in the big house, driving herself home in the company of the plantation’s aged oaks and weeping willows, each branch and leaf dusted with silvery moonlight."
"She sat in front of her laptop at the kitchen table, looking at law schools in the D.C. area."
"Leave it, Lorraine," she said, her tongue light with champagne, her mood brighter than it had been in weeks, years even. Leave it just as it is."