In July 2021, five weeks after my mother died, my husband dropped me off at the emergency room of the small hospital in the Massachusetts town where my father now lived alone.
Ruth knew she was pregnant, but they’d driven the hundred miles from Gabbs to Tonopah anyway, for confirmation, she guessed, or for the change of scenery—though everywhere she looked there was desert and mountains, more desert, more mountains.
My mother, teaching me how to protect my body: “When a man touches you here, yell I am a body that will bear a child.” How was I, a child, to understand that as the sanctity of my body. How was I to know to say, the body without that potential is also whole
On the front porch he lit a cigarette, thinking he’d quit when the baby was born. His neighborhood of Newport appeared peaceful at night, the yards neatly aligned, illuminated by dim streetlights. A slight hum filled the air, its source indistinct, as if all the houses emanated the sussuration of comfortable life.
Jessica Brown-Findlay as Lady Sybil Crawley and Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary Crawley Photo: ITV
Editor’s note: We are very happy to announce that Bethanne Patrick (@thebookmaven) will be joining VQR on a monthly basis. Lo [...]
0 Comments