The Winter Sister Quotes
"The hours of that day were punctuated by my mother’s sobs."
"What does a mother feel in her bones when her daughter stops breathing?"
"She stayed locked away, sobbing, the phone undisturbed on its hook."
"Why didn’t I tell my mother about Ben the second I jolted awake that morning?"
"I’d like to believe I was trying to protect Persephone’s secret—but the truth, I know, is that I was trying to protect myself."
"In fourteen years of being her daughter, I’d never heard such a thing."
"Her hand on my forehead was a cool washcloth, her voice a lullaby."
"She looked at me on the floor but didn’t kneel down beside me or put her hand on my head."
"I recognized the squeak of her mattress as she—what? Pummeled her fists against it?"
"She was finally sleeping. She wants to be alone."
"I didn’t know my father—my mother had always told me I’d been the product of a one-night stand."
"A reminder that, no matter what had happened, I’d always be tethered to her."
"I couldn’t pretend that, just by turning thirty, I was old enough now to have outgrown my feelings of motherlessness."
"I had made it into the hallway before they even rang the bell."
"Whenever I tried to piece together the minutes following Falley’s words, all I could see was the night Persephone left."
"You’re being really brave," she said gently. "We’ll find your sister. Don’t worry."
"It was risky—thinking of her in a way that made her easier to love."
"Sometimes, it took everything I had not to buckle, not to see my fingers locking the bedroom window over and over, the click of the latch echoing in my head."
"I hadn’t said it like that before. I’d said, "My mom is sick," and "My mom has cancer," but I hadn’t yet said what even the hopeful doctors probably knew: she was dying."
"I scanned the other side of the street, where a man sitting on the curb snuffed out a cigarette and then reached into his jacket pocket for another."
"The word ran through my head, over and over, quiet at first, but then screaming."
"I had once loved my mother so deeply that I couldn’t imagine there being anything in the world that could complicate that feeling."
"Even though I knew I wouldn’t find it, I scoured our bedroom as soon as Jill brought me home."
"I was sure that Ben’s father was protecting him."
"It was nearly impossible to throw a rock in Spring Hill without it flying over land that was either owned or developed by the Emorys."
"I had very little contact with Falley or Parker after that day in the interview room."
"I wanted to read that he’d planned an early retirement, or that he’d finally lost the voting public’s support—anything that would mean Ben no longer benefited from his father’s immunity, his backdoor threats."
"To convict Ben Emory of such a vicious crime would have been to cast a shadow on the entire town’s history."
"I imagined the folders and bags of evidence cracking like ice in the aisles of the police station basement."
"Each making choices we couldn’t unchoose, my heart thudded."
"It wasn’t just Will Emory’s position that gave Ben power; he had a long line of respected Spring Hill ancestors to stand behind him like an army of ghosts."
"Even Will’s own father, Richard Emory, had been a popular congressman for several terms."
"I never once considered that the bones of her wrists would stick so closely to her skin, or that the shape of her head would seem so alien."
"She looked like a child playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes."
"I had no idea what other boy it could have been, so I asked if she meant Ben."
"The bruises on her neck and arm were, we believed, two separate things—not necessarily connected, not necessarily unconnected."
"She was right about Ben’s eyes. The longer we stared at each other there in the hospital, the more weightless I felt, my body seeming to pitch forward, floating toward those two dark pools that kept pulling me in."
"I’ve been leaving her roses for years," he said. "Ever since..."
"We all played our part, Sylvie. We all played our part."
"You have no idea what it would have taken for me to talk about it. What it still takes, now."
"I don’t like to talk about it. It hurts just to hear his name."
"It was the way she lost her. It hurts when she drinks now, because... cancer."
"You were out of here the first chance you got, weren’t you? You never asked for any of it."
"I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I—I didn’t know she’d..."
"I love that I can still see your fingers on my skin when I get home, and I love how much it helps me. Because it does. It really does."
"I have no idea what he meant by any of that. He’s just crazy, Sylvie. That’s all."
"Love is love. You can’t just kick it to the curb, even if sometimes you wished like hell you could."
"I’m not the one whose girlfriend ended up dead."
"I mean, here was a girl I loved, who was willing to bear my pain."
"It was years later and everything, but when my mom left and my grandfather passed, it was hard for me to be alone with him."
"I wanted to do something with my life that would—in some way, at least—make up for the horrible mistakes I’d made."
"Runs in the family, I guess. I’m an extension of my father."
"More honorable than working with cancer patients?"
"I’m sure he thinks that, living in the guesthouse, getting all the perks of our family lifestyle day after day, eventually I’ll come around."
"I thought I’d hate it. My father was manipulating me, and I knew it. But it’s been okay."
"I don’t want to owe my father a thing—but it’s been okay."
"I think that maybe I’ve always been a little jealous of that. I just can’t imagine being that passionate about a job."
"The truth is, I have no idea what I want to do with my life."
"I found it in my driveway. Right after she went missing."
"I hold the fucking cards, and they’re all coming up aces."
"I never knew them for what they were—symptoms of the ache and loneliness no paint could ever cure."
"I was never terrified of anyone taking you away, was I? That’s why you and I were so close."
"I have to tell you something. But first, I have to, I need to..."