Joy

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, Two things may be considered in reference to mendicancy. The first is on the part of the act itself of begging, which has a certain abasement attaching to it; since of all men those would seem most abased who are not only poor, but are so needy that they have to receive their meat from others. In this way some deserve praise for begging out of humility, just as they abase themselves in other ways, as being the most efficacious remedy against pride which they desire to quench either in themselves or in others by their example. For just as a disease that arises from excessive heat is most efficaciously healed by things that excel in cold, so proneness to pride is most efficaciously healed by those things which savor most of abasement. Hence it is said in the Decretals (II, cap. Si quis semel, de Paenitentia): “To condescend to the humblest duties, and to devote oneself to the lowliest service is an exercise of humility; for thus one is able to heal the disease of pride and human glory.” Hence Jerome praises Fabiola (Ep. lxxvii ad ocean.) for that she desired “to receive alms, having poured forth all her wealth for Christ’s sake.” The Blessed Alexis acted in like manner, for, having renounced all his possessions for Christ’s sake he rejoiced in receiving alms even from his own servants. It is also related of the Blessed Arsenius in the Lives of the Fathers (v, 6) that he gave thanks because he was forced by necessity to ask for alms. Hence it is enjoined to some people as a penance for grievous sins to go on a pilgrimage begging. Since, however, humility like the other virtues should not be without discretion, it behooves one to be discreet in becoming a mendicant for the purpose of humiliation, lest a man thereby incur the mark of covetousness or of anything else unbecoming. Secondly, mendicancy may be considered on the part of that which one gets by begging: and thus a man may be led to beg by a twofold motive. First, by the desire to have wealth or meat without working for it, and such like mendicancy is unlawful; secondly, by a motive of necessity or usefulness. The motive is one of necessity if a man has no other means of livelihood save begging; and it is a motive of usefulness if he wishes to accomplish something useful, and is unable to do so without the alms of the faithful. Thus alms are besought for the building of a bridge, or church, or for any other work whatever that is conducive to the common good: thus scholars may seek alms that they may devote themselves to the study of wisdom. In this way mendicancy is lawful to religious no less than to seculars. Reply to Objection 1: Augustine is speaking there explicitly of those who beg from motives of covetousness.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘Yes,’ he frowned, turning the page. It was Oxford now—the matriculation photograph, posed in the stony front quad at Corpus, the pelican on top of the sundial appearing to sit on the head of the lanky, begowned chemist at the centre of the back row. I looked rather anonymous in it and once Rupert had identified me we moved to some colour snaps of a summer picnic at Wytham. There I sat, cross-legged on a rug, shirtless, brown, blue-eyed—perhaps the most beautiful I had ever been or ever would be. ‘That’s you,’ cried Rupert, splodging his forefinger down on my face as if recording his fingerprints for the police. ‘And that’s James! Isn’t he funny?’ ‘Yes, isn’t he a scream.’ James had on his panama hat, was quite drunk and had been caught at an unflattering angle (one I had never seen him from in real life), so that he looked lecherously seedy. ‘And is that Robert Carson um Smith?’ ‘Smith-Carson, actually, but jolly good all the same.’ ‘Was he a homosexual?’ ‘Certainly was.’ ‘I don’t like him.’ ‘No, he wasn’t very nice really. Some people liked him, though. He was great friends with James, you know.’ ‘Is James a homosexual, too?’ ‘You know perfectly well he is.’ ‘Yes, I thought he was, but Mummy said you mustn’t say people were.’ ‘You say what you like, sweetheart; as long as it’s true, of course.’ ‘Of course. Is he a homosexual as well?’ he chimed on, pointing to the remaining person in the picture, the blazered, boatered man-mountain, Ashley Child, a wealthy American Rhodes scholar whose birthday, as far as I could remember, we had been celebrating. ‘A bit hard to say, I’m afraid. I should think so, though.’ ‘I mean,’ Rupert looked up at me cogitatively, ‘almost everyone is homosexual, aren’t they? Boys, I mean.’ ‘I sometimes think so,’ I hedged. ‘Is Grandpa one?’ ‘Good heavens no,’ I protested. ‘Am I one?’ Rupert asked intently. ‘It’s a bit early to say yet, old fellow. But you could be, you know.’ ‘Goody!’ he squealed, banging his heels against the front of the sofa again. ‘Then I can come and live with you.’ ‘Would you like that?’ I asked, my avuncular rather than my homosexual feelings deeply gratified by this. And really Rupert’s cult of the gay, his innocent, optimistic absorption in the subject, delighted me even while its origin and purpose were obscure. I was saved from the sexual analysis of the next set of pictures, the Oscar Wilde Society Ball, by the doorbell ringing. (The dressnote that year had been ‘Slave Trade’, and the spectacle of predominantly straight boys camping it up to the eyeballs would have been confusing to the child’s budding sense of role-play.) It was not Philippa but Gavin who had come. ‘Sorry about this, Will,’ he said. ‘Has he been a frightful bother?’ ‘Not a bit, Gavin. Come in. We were just having a talk about homosexuality.’

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  “Yeah?” “Is this Clyde?” “Yeah?” “I’m Regina, Cookie’s daughter, calling from New York. Can you please put Rosie on the phone?” After some murmurs and the croak of Cookie’s voice objecting in the background, I finally hear Rosie’s tender voice: “Gi?” Tears gush out of my eyes. “Bambina?” I ask her. “Are you and Norman okay?” She stays quiet. “Is Mom standing right there?” I hear her debating over how to respond. “Yeah.” “Okay. I’m going to speak quietly, but here’s what we’ll do. I’m going to ask you some questions. If the answer is yes, you’ll pretend to answer me about life on the farm. Like, ‘Yes, there are lots of animals here.’ And if the answer if no, you’ll do the same thing—‘No, it hasn’t snowed here yet. Silly Regina, it’s only October.’ You ready?” “Yes, there are lots of animals here.” I giggle. “Good, you get it!” Through a conversation carried in this kind of code, Rosie makes it clear that she and Norm are attending school regularly, but also that Cookie and Clyde are abusing her. That night I call Ms. Harvey, who says the usual: “There’s really nothing we can do.” Over the next week, I continue making these coded calls to Rosie and Norman, and they reveal as much as they can through the feigned conversations. Then I call information and ask for the number to the elementary school in Oakview, Idaho. “May I speak with the guidance counselor please?” I ask. When he’s patched through I tell him about Cookie’s history and what’s been happening to Rosie. Then Cookie calls me at Addie’s to tell me the guidance counselor brought her in for a meeting to check out my story. “And when I asked the kids what the hell was going on, they told me the whole thing,” Cookie says. “You three have a code when you call here. You give them the third degree, then you think you have us all figured out. Well guess what,” she says with a low growl. “I told the guidance counselor the truth: that you’re a juvenile delinquent and alcoholic liar who was committed to a foster home to keep your ass out of jail. And do you think I was proud to tell him that Rosie is a promiscuous nine-year-old who made advances toward Clyde? Then when he rejected her, she started making up stories! That’s how it went, Regina. It was humiliating to talk about what derelicts my children have turned out to be. Although, knowing the kind of man your father is, I don’t know why I’m surprised. And for the record, the marks on her body? Those are from the farmwork. You don’t get to live and eat for free, in Idaho or Long Island or anywhere else.” Sobbing, I call Ms. Harvey and beg her to speak to Rosie and Norm’s guidance counselor in Idaho and tell him that she outright lied to him about the kids and me.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  I was the happiest boy on earth. The teachers had set aside a period before recess for everyone to exchange valentines. There was a corridor outside our classrooms where I knew Maylene would be, and I waited for her there. All around me, love was in bloom. Boys and girls exchanging cards and gifts, laughing and giggling and stealing kisses. I waited and waited. Finally Maylene showed up and walked over to me. I was about to say “Happy Valentine’s Day!” when she stopped me and said, “Oh, hi, Trevor. Um, listen, I can’t be your girlfriend anymore. Lorenzo asked me to be his valentine and I can’t have two valentines, so I’m his girlfriend now and not yours.” She said it so matter-of-factly that I had no idea how to process it. This was my first time having a girlfriend, so at first I thought, Huh, maybe this is just how it goes. “Oh, okay,” I said. “Well, um...happy Valentine’s Day.” I held out the card and the flowers and the teddy bear. She took them and said thanks, and she was gone. I felt like someone had taken a gun and shot holes in every part of me. But at the same time some part of me said, “Well, this makes sense.” Lorenzo was everything I wasn’t. He was popular. He was white. He’d upset the balance of everything by asking out the only colored girl in school. Girls loved him, and he was dumb as rocks. A nice guy, but kind of a bad boy. Girls did his homework for him; he was that guy. He was really good-looking, too. It was like when he was creating his character he traded in all his intelligence points for beauty points. I stood no chance. As devastated as I was, I understood why Maylene made the choice that she did. I would have picked Lorenzo over me, too. All the other kids were running up and down the corridors and out on the playground, laughing and smiling with their red and pink cards and flowers, and I went back to the classroom and sat by myself and waited for the bell to ring. Petrol for the car, like food, was an expense we could not avoid, but my mom could get more mileage out of a tank of petrol than any human who has ever been on a road in the history of automobiles. She knew every trick. Driving around Johannesburg in our rusty old Volkswagen, every time she stopped in traffic, she’d turn off the car. Then the traffic would start and she’d turn the car on again. That stop-start technology that they use in hybrid cars now? That was my mom. She was a hybrid car before hybrid cars came out.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I have eaten the honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends, and drink and be inebriated, my dearly Beloved. I sleep and my heart watcheth. The voice of my Beloved knocking, Open to Me, My sister, My love, My dove, My undefiled; for My head is full of dew, and My locks of the drops of the night. Cantic. 5:1, 2. (3) The strengthening of souls; The earth shall be filled with the fruit of Thy works, … that bread may strengthen man’s heart. Ps. 103:13, 14. 1. Crushing devils; They found an Egyptian in the field, and they brought him to David; and they gave him bread to eat and water to drink.… When he had eaten them his spirit returned, and he was refreshed.… David said, Canst thou bring me to this company?… When he had brought him, behold they were lying spread upon all the ground eating and drinking.… And David slew them from evening unto evening of the next day. 1 Kings 30:11, 12, 15, 16. Be strengthened in the Lord and in the might of His power; put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. Eph. 6:10, 11. It came to pass, when Samuel was offering the holocaust the Philistines began the battle against Israel; but the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and terrified them; and they were overthrown before the face of Israel. 1 Kings 7:10. 2. Bearing trials; Thus saith the king, Put this man in prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and water of affliction till I return in peace. 3 Kings 22:27. I pray you to take some meat for your health’s sake; for there shall not a hair of the head of any of you perish. And when he had said these things, taking bread he gave thanks to God in the sight of them all; and when he had broken it he began to eat. Then they were all of better cheer. Acts 27:34–36. I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me. Philip. 4:13. 3. Doing good works; Who shall find a valiant woman?… She hath risen in the night, and given a prey to her household and food to her maidens. She hath considered a field and bought it; with the fruit of her hands she hath planted a vineyard. Prov. 31:10, 15, 16. a. Works of mercy; Fodder and a rod and a burden are for an ass; bread and correction and works for a servant. Ecclus. 33:25. b. Gain to the soul; Thy name is as oil poured out; therefore young maidens have loved Thee. Cantic. 1:2.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  As Elizabeth walked behind Michael, he turned slowly and took her hand. I felt that calm electricity that happens when it’s right—the thing, whatever it is, that doesn’t happen unless it’s basically right. And I paused to appreciate the knowledge that our cynical generation has gained. And I choked back a tear. We’re okay, Michael and Elizabeth. Speak the truth to each other and be happy. Index The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  Carol was wiping tears from her eyes. Even the judge, who usually tolerated no disruptions, seemed to embrace the drama of the moment. A number of my former students now worked with the public defender’s office in New Orleans, and they, too, had come to court and were cheering. I had to speak with Mr. Caston by phone and explain what had happened, since he couldn’t see everything from the video monitor. He was overjoyed. He became the first person to be released as a result of the Supreme Court’s ban on death-in-prison sentences for juvenile lifers. We went down the hall to Mr. Carter’s courtroom and had another success, winning a new sentence that meant that he, too, would be released immediately. Mr. Carter’s family was ecstatic. There were hugs and promises of home-cooked meals for me and the staff of EJI. Carol and I busily began making arrangements for Mr. Caston’s and Mr. Carter’s releases, which would take place that evening. The protocol at Angola was to release prisoners at midnight and give them bus fare to New Orleans or a city of their choice in Louisiana. We dispatched staff to Angola, which was several hours away, to meet the men when they were released, sparing them the midnight bus trip. Exhausted, I wandered the halls of the courthouse while we waited for one more piece of paper to be faxed and approved to clear the way for the release of Mr. Caston and Mr. Carter. An older black woman sat on the marble steps in the massive courthouse hallway. She looked tired and wore what my sister and I used to call a “church meeting hat.” She had smooth dark skin, and I recognized her as someone who had been in the courtroom when Mr. Carter was resentenced. In fact, I thought I’d seen her each time I’d come to the courthouse in New Orleans. I assumed that she was related or connected to one of the clients, although I didn’t remember the other family members ever mentioning her. I must have been staring because she saw me looking and waved at me, gesturing for me to come to her. When I walked over to her she smiled at me. “I’m tired and I’m not going to get up, so you’re going to have to lean over for me to give you a hug.” She had a sweet voice that crackled. I smiled back at her. “Well, yes, ma’am. I love hugs, thank you.” She wrapped her arms around my neck. “Sit, sit. I want to talk to you,” she said. I sat down beside her on the steps. “I’ve seen you here several times, are you related to Mr. Caston or Mr. Carter?” I asked.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 1: Christ’s frequent appearing served to assure the disciples of the truth of the Resurrection; but continual intercourse might have led them into the error of believing that He had risen to the same life as was His before. Yet by His constant presence He promised them comfort in another life, according to Jn. 16:22: “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you.” Reply to Objection 2: That Christ did not stay continually with the disciples was not because He deemed it more expedient for Him to be elsewhere: but because He judged it to be more suitable for the apostles’ instruction that He should not abide continually with them, for the reason given above. But it is quite unknown in what places He was bodily present in the meantime, since Scripture is silent, and His dominion is in every place (Cf. Ps. 102:22). Reply to Objection 3: He appeared oftener on the first day, because the disciples were to be admonished by many proofs to accept the faith in His Resurrection from the very out set: but after they had once accepted it, they had no further need of being instructed by so many apparitions. Accordingly one reads in the Gospel that after the first day He appeared again only five times. For, as Augustine says (De Consens. Evang. iii), after the first five apparitions “He came again a sixth time when Thomas saw Him; a seventh time was by the sea of Tiberias at the capture of the fishes; the eighth was on the mountain of Galilee, according to Matthew; the ninth occasion is expressed by Mark, ‘at length when they were at table,’ because no more were they going to eat with Him upon earth; the tenth was on the very day, when no longer upon the earth, but uplifted into the cloud, He was ascending into heaven. But, as John admits, not all things were written down. And He visited them frequently before He went up to heaven,” in order to comfort them. Hence it is written (1 Cor. 15:6,7) that “He was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once . . . after that He was seen by James”; of which apparitions no mention is made in the Gospels. Reply to Objection 4: Chrysostom in explaining Mat. 26:32—“after I shall be risen again, I will go before you into Galilee,” says (Hom. lxxxiii in Matth.), “He goes not to some far off region in order to appear to them, but among His own people, and in those very places” in which for the most part they had lived with Him; “in order that they might thereby believe that He who was crucified was the same as He who rose again.” And on this account “He said that He would go into Galilee, that they might be delivered from fear of the Jews.”

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  On holidays and birthdays, she sends letters and cards to both her and Cherie. In October 1999, Camille delivers Danielle Grace. The birth of a baby girl is a good excuse for all of us to celebrate, made even sweeter thanks to the fact that of the seven children in the family, five are boys: Frankie and Michael, who belong to Frank and Camille; and Cherie’s three sons, Anthony, Matthew, and Johnathan. Finally, Camille’s daughter, Maria, will have another little girl to grow up with. With every new life that enters our family, more and more joy abounds. Silently, there’s a satisfaction inside me that Cookie can never be part of it: We don’t know how long she has, but it’s clear she will not outlive this decade. In November, a month after Danielle’s birth, I find myself with an irresistible urge to write Cookie a lengthy letter. Don’t ever deceive yourself into believing that you should be credited for our achievements, I tell her. Despite the odds and your attempted influences, we’ve prevailed. Many women can give birth, but that doesn’t make them a mom. To us, you’re just Cookie. Norm reports back that he began to read the letter to her but she told him to stop after the first paragraph. He also informs us she’s made a last-minute switch from being Mormon to American Indian because she believes it will be better for her after death. Thanksgiving passes and Norman shares reports of Cookie’s imminent demise. “I have only one wish,” I tell Camille. “I pray she will not pass on December sixteenth.” Camille looks at me curiously. “December sixteenth is Julia’s birthday.” By now, Julia and I have grown extremely close and I don’t want her special day of the year to be spoiled or overshadowed by my mother’s death. But of course, in the early morning hours of December 16, shortly after one A.M. in Idaho and four A.M. in New York, my phone rings. “She’s gone,” Camille tells me. We sit on the phone in silence, letting it all sink in. The chapter of our lives that we’ve waited so long to close is now over. I take the day off from work and Camille picks me up at the rail station. Without discussing our plan, she pulls onto the highway and we both know where we’re headed. We drive out to Saint James General Store—past Wicks farm stand, where we used to steal apples, and King Kullen, where we used to sneak our meals out of the store beneath our clothes. We drive past the Glue Factory apartment, now a Sal’s Auto Mechanics, where we spent the longest time consecutively as a family. We head to Saint James Elementary School, where we wander the back grounds . . .

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  It’s been more than fourteen years since she’s been to New York, and that last visit was really strained.” I hear Camille thinking it over. “Let’s see if she wants to talk.” I send Rosie a private message and tell her to give me a call. “Gi, I miss you guys,” she says, choking up with tears. “I know that I’ve kept my distance, but I don’t like that you’re not in my life. I want to be a part of our family again.” Crying, I respond: “We want you with us too, sweetie. We always have.” We talk once a week for the next month, then we plan for her to fly out for a long weekend in late March. I park my car at JFK and walk into the baggage claim. She’s grown even taller since I last saw her, and she stands out among the women around her. When she turns to me, her face lights up so that even her eyes smile. Then I can see she’s welling with tears, and I wrap my arms around her. I wheel her suitcase to my car and when we’re both in and buckled, I take her hand and don’t let go. As I’m driving, I keep looking at her to make sure she’s really there. She smiles at me, still with moist eyes: I’m here. I set her up in my guest room. On the nightstand is a vase with dried hydrangea, cut from one of my plantings the previous summer. Camille comes out to my house to spend the night, and on my couches the three of us cozy up and talk throughout the night. This is when Rosie reveals that she’s never known about my difficult history with Cookie, or that Cherie and Camille suffered, too—she thought she was the only one whom our mother tortured and despised. Rosie doesn’t remember seeing me beaten the time before we were all separated, or ever. “Those memories didn’t stay with you, did they?” I asked. She shook her head, trying to place some recollection. “No.” “Good.” We give the past only a part of our weekend, and the rest we spend catching up on each other’s lives, when Cherie and Norman join us. I share with them that I’m thinking about throwing my hat in the ring for the November 2010 election for state Senate. “The incumbent’s been in office for more than thirty years . . . I’m sensing that the people here want a change. I know it’s a long shot,” I tell them, “but everything I’ve done up to now has been a long shot, too.” I BEGIN MY campaign early and run hard, knocking on residents’ doors to chat with them about what issues in the district they’re most concerned about. I stop only to enjoy a week in August when Rosie; her husband, Bobby; and their three kids arrive to spend a week at my house.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  “The look on the son of a bitch’s face, I thought he was gonna shit a bagel.” I’ve just seen this man for the first time five hours ago and already I’m planning how I’d like to decorate my bedroom in his home. Dad , I’d ask him, will you hang a shelf where I can place all my Jesus figurines? He’d install blinds on my bedroom windows and check their locks every night at dark. Then he’d tuck me in, pushing the edge of my comforter between the mattress and box spring to make sure I’m safe and secure. “See that?” Cookie says. “He took one look at your sore ass and left you again. Good thing you have me to care about you.” But nothing she says about my father can bring me down from what I’ve just learned about him: that he exists . There’s someone else in the world with me . . . I’m not alone anymore. I’ve always wondered, Who is this man? Is he even alive? He’s not just alive, he’s handsome . . . and looks normal. My universe has shifted. Paul Accerbi. I had heard those words, but they have new meaning now. In our first apartment in Saint James, Cookie would tie me to the radiator and invoke his name as she beat me. “Paul Accerbi!” she’d scream, yanking my hair to pound my head on the floor or whipping my back with a belt. “He hurt me the MOST,” she’d wail. “So YOU will hurt the most!” I knew this from the first night that I met her when I was four, and she never let me forget it. Cookie shared her stories of who each of our separate fathers were. Some we knew to be true; when she talked about Rosie’s dad and mine, her stories never changed about Vito and Paul. But the details always got blurred with the identity of the fathers of my other siblings—she claimed they ranged from famous pop singers from her go-go dancer days to gas station attendants she met on the rebound. What was shocking for me to learn about Paul is that he lived close enough that stopping in the deli for lunch could have been part of his normal routine. After Cookie’s gone out for a drink, I grab the Suffolk County phone book; my stomach is doing flips as I near the first page of A . I scan the listings . . . until I reach the only name that matches his: Accerbi, Paul & Joan My father and what appears to be his wife live in Riverhead, which, if I’m reading the phone book’s map correctly, is probably a forty-minute drive east of our house. I flip back to the A ’s and close the cover, staring at the no-nonsense yellow and the black text.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  “Then get me her supervisor, please! Tell him it’s Regina Calcaterra.” He picks up. “This is Mr. McManus.” “Mr. McManus, I got into Stony Brook!” I tell him. “Admissions needs a letter to prove I’m a ward of the state so I can apply for a school loan and the Pell grant.” There’s silence on the other end of the phone. “Mr. McManus?” “Regina,” he says, “can’t you hear me smiling?” I laugh. “Really?” “You did it, Regina!” he exclaimed. “We are all so proud of you. I’ll get the letter done so you can pick it up today and bring it to the university before five o’clock. Sound okay?” “That’s perfect,” I tell him. “Mr. McManus, can I tell you something?” “You can tell me anything, Regina.” “Thanks. This is the biggest day of my life.” “So far,” he says. “So far.” But while my work and academics are falling into place, I’m far from living worry-free. Later that summer, just weeks after I’ve seen her, Rosie’s challenges at home seem to escalate, and her communications with me begin to increase. I send letters to her, addressed to her friends’ houses or teachers’ addresses, that include money for her to use to go out with her friends or buy anything she can get away with that won’t raise Cookie’s suspicion. Just when it grows too much for me to manage, Cherie calls to tell me she’s thinking of moving out to Idaho to help Rosie. Cherie and her husband, who have been separated for a while, are now divorcing, and his parents had a judge give them custody of her son. “I didn’t want to tell you any of this, Gi, because you have enough to worry about. But they took my son from me and I can’t fight them anymore,” she says. “This is my chance to try and help Rosie.” And not much later, she is gone. 9 Out of Idaho Fall 1984 to Spring 1986 I’M SEVENTEEN IN the fall of 1984, when I start my freshman year of college at Stony Brook. I quit my job selling ceiling fans and outlets at Rickel’s (where, after a year, I was promoted to a sales job with commission) to take a job selling shoes at Thom McAn in the Smith Haven Mall. Status-wise this is a step up; plus, I’ve joined the university’s gymnastics club, and early in the semester my gymnastics coach seems to detect my sense of discipline. He operates a camp every July in Southampton and asks me to come and work for him next summer. As long as I coach every day from nine in the morning to nine at night—“With breaks in between, of course,” he says—I’ll get to sleep there for free and make a respectable sum of money at the end of July to use for the next semester. Not to mention the fact that I could spend the entire month of July out in the Hamptons . . .

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  For the first time, Rosie’s daughter and two sons meet their aunts, uncles, and cousins. Seeing mia bambina as a wife and mom is positively magical. Our entire family goes for long walks along the water, and my neighbors pause from gardening and lean forward in their Adirondack chairs to take in the sight of us. “You got a permit for that parade?” they shout. When I count, there are a dozen of us walking down the road, chatting arm in arm and laughing. I run a campaign that covers almost half the terrain in a very large county until supporters of my opponent challenge my eligibility to run. They assert that I’m not fit to run because I spent time living in Pennsylvania where my law firm was located and I testify that indeed it was an insignificantly small period where I represented the State of New York as a plaintiff in a global corporate fraud case and spent much of my time working and living in New York anyhow. I’ve spent nearly all of my life living in New York State, and my return to Suffolk County has cemented it: This is home. After I’m removed from the ballot in August 2010, I tell Todd I need some time to decompress and regain my privacy. For a few days, I shut myself in and lie on my floor asking: How did I get here? Why did I fight so hard for this? There are so many battles in my life that are so much more worthy of my energy. When Todd suggests we get away for a vacation. I realize there’s only one place to consider: Utah, to see Rosie. Todd books two tickets for Labor Day weekend, and because it’s off-season, we stay in a large hotel suite in Park City where Rosie and Bobby bring Daniel, Brody, and Lexi to go swimming, and we all wrap ourselves in luxurious white robes to watch silly movies and order a dozen things from the room service menu. I tell Rosie how I’ve been watching Lexi in wonder, recognizing the exact mannerisms she’s inherited from the little girl her mother used to be. On the flight home it hits me how I have more than I ever expected I’d be blessed with: a legal career with a noteworthy law firm that makes it possible for me to make a difference in the world, the whole truth about my biological background, and an unconditional partner who’s always along for the ride, who loves my independence, who supports my every adventure and drives me to go even further. And now I have Rosie. A year later, in 2011, I’m eager to embrace politics again when I’m introduced to Steve Bellone, the Democratic candidate for Suffolk County Executive. After Steve is elected, he asks me to join his administration as the chief deputy executive.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  After doing this for a few days, I realized that if the bucket had just held pee, things might have been easier. But one of our bunkmates was a night-pooper. Norm suspected Jason, as Charlie was a sound sleeper and had to be poked awake each morning, Hannah seemed too shy to ever poop in a bucket, and Brian shook so much there was little chance he’d be able to poop in a bucket without pooping on the floor. One night, Norm asked the dark room: “What happens when the poop hole fills up?” “It’s an old w-w-w-well,” Brian said. “They’d probably make us dig another poop hole,” Charlie said. “Yeah,” Norm said. “Then after a few years, the whole yard would be one giant poop hole.” We all laughed at the idea of slumpy Becky, flat-footed Mrs. Callahan, and liver-faced Mr. Callahan living at the crest of a giant poop hole. There was one nice thing that happened our first week at the Callahans’. Each day when we got home from school, Norm and I found food hidden under our pillows: bits of pancake, a handful of cereal, and one half an orange each. We gobbled it up quickly before the floating eyes and ears bobbed into our room and caught us. Like what you just read? Click here to buy Girl Unbroken. Acknowledgments MY JOURNEY WAS substantially smoother and sometimes purely adventurous because of my loving sister Camille, who although our paths are quite different, never stopped walking beside me as I carved out mine. Her trust in me telling our story through my perspective was vital to this book being written. My oldest sister Cherie was apprehensive at first, but after reading an early draft quickly came around to supporting the book and went further by encouraging me to share the tough aspects of her story. She is now delightfully relieved that we can finally embrace our history rather than fear its disclosure, and for her confidence I am truly thankful. Much appreciation goes to my brother Norman for supporting the book, despite his quest for peaceful solitude. Boundless love and adoration to Rosie, who has her own story to tell, which I’ll encourage her to do as she did with mine, but, of course, only when she is ready. I am forever grateful to my companion, Todd Ciaravino, who, regardless of how unconventional my endeavors, is always along for the ride. He wholeheartedly encouraged me to write my story when it was just a seedling, and he helped me bring it to full bloom, as did his very endearing family. Also, I owe much to my confidante and closest friend, Melanie McEvoy, whose glitter makes all those around her sparkle. She shares my life with me on the North Fork—it would not be home without her nearby. You both ground me.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  He chooses not to appeal. Through July and August 2003, Paul resists paying the $414.71 as ordered by the court. I agree to compromise: Rather than seek another judgment against him, I agree that if the DNA test comes back negative he won’t have to pay me . . . but if it comes back positive, I expect a check for the full amount. Through his attorney, he complains that although I won the court case, he shouldn’t be forced to pay the twenty-five-dollar DNA test fee. “Regina is the one seeking Paul’s DNA,” Wayne Teller emphasizes. So in another effort to move the DNA testing forward, I agree to his request. A few weeks later, in September 2003, I receive a letter from Genelex, the lab that compared our DNA. I race up to my apartment and rip open the envelope. The letter reads: Paul Accerbi is not excluded as the biological father of Regina M. Calcaterra. 99.64% probability of paternity. I collapse into a chair at my kitchen table and cry—jubilant, elated tears. Paul Accerbi is my father. My father is Paul Accerbi. I lived through three and a half decades of anxiety about the abuse I received from my mother, why she hurt me over and over and over . . . why she tried to break me. Now I finally know: It really is because I was Paul’s daughter. In this instant the parts of me she damaged can finally begin to heal with this single word of certainty about my life. Paul Accerbi knows that I am his child, and he knows I know that he abandoned me. He can never deny that again. It’s over. It’s over. Before I call Ralph, there’s a more pressing phone call to make. I dial the Happy House. “Aunt Julia?” I hear her voice tremble. “Yes?” “I just got the test results. Paul is my father . . . and, more important, you are my aunt.” When I arrive at her house to celebrate that night, the phone rings. “It’s Paul’s brother, Sonny,” Julia says. “He wants to talk to you.” I cradle the phone against my ear. “Regina, it’s your uncle!” he says. “When can you come visit so I can share the family’s heritage with you?” The inflections in his voice sound just like Paul’s. I make plans to drive to Sonny’s just ten minutes from Julia’s house when I leave that evening. “What now?” Julia asks me. “Will you go see Pauly?” “Right now, no. We’re both too heated from the litigation battle to want to see each other. He still has to sign a document so the court can officially record that he’s my father. Then I can amend my birth certificate.” I’m finally going to put Paul Accerbi’s name in the box that’s been empty my entire life. Christmas week I receive a check from Paul’s lawyer— $389.71 $414.71, minus the $25 cost for the DNA test.

• From Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

  Six centuries earlier the great temple consecrated to the Olympian Zeus had been left abandoned almost as soon as the structure was started. My workmen took up the task and Athens again felt the joy of activity such as she had not known since the days of Pericles: I was completing what one of the Seleucids had aspired in vain to finish, and was making amends in kind for the depredations of our Sulla. To inspect the work I went daily in and out of a labyrinth of machines and intricate pulleys, of half-dressed columns and marble blocks haphazardly piled, gleaming white against the blue sky. There was something of the excitement of the naval shipyards; a mighty vessel had been salvaged and was being fitted out for the future. In the evenings the art of building gave way to that of music, which is architecture, too, though invisible. I am somewhat practiced in all the arts, but music is the only one to which I have steadily kept and in which I profess to some skill. At Rome I had to dissemble this taste, but could indulge it with discretion in Athens. The musicians used to gather in a court where a cypress grew, near a statue of Hermes. There were only six or seven of them, an orchestra of reeds and lyres; to these we sometimes added a professional with a cithara. My instrument was chiefly the long flute. We played ancient tunes, some almost forgotten, and newer works as well, composed for me. I liked the hard vigor of the Dorian airs, but certainly had no aversion to voluptuous or passionate melodies, or to the poignant, subtly broken rhythms which sober, fearful folk reject as intoxicating for the senses and the soul. Through the strings of his lyre I could see the profile of my young companion, gravely absorbed in his part in the group, his fingers moving with care along the taut cords. That perfect winter was rich in friendly intercourse: the opulent Atticus, whose bank was financing my constructions (though not without profit therefrom), invited me to his gardens in Kephissia where he lived surrounded by a court of lecturers and writers then in fashion; his son, young Herod, a subtle wit, proved indispensable at my Athenian suppers. He had certainly lost the timidity which once left him speechless before me, on the occasion of his embassy to the Sarmatian frontier on behalf of the youth of Athens to congratulate me on my accession; but his growing vanity now seemed to me no more than mildly ridiculous. Herod's rival in eloquence, and in wealth, was the rhetorician Polemo, glory of Laodicea, who beguiled me by his Oriental style, shimmering and full as the gold-bearing waves of Pactolus; this clever craftsman in words lived as he discoursed, with splendor.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  He smiled, and put a kiss on my cheekbone. ‘How are the ill?’ I asked. ‘Oh, fine,’ he said. ‘Anything interesting?’ The bizarre things that people said and did in the consulting room were a staple of our conversation. ‘Not really. The woman with the stones came back. And I had a lad in this morning with the most enormous donger.’ James was obsessed by big cocks, many of which seemed to pass through his hands in his professional capacity—though all too few, I suspected, in his private one. ‘How big?’ I enquired. ‘Ooh …’ he gestured with his hands, like a fisherman—‘in its flaccid condition that is. Quite unbearably hideous youth, alas. He seemed to think there was something wrong with it—so I told him to go to the clinic.’ He took a deep draught of beer. ‘Fantastic cock, though,’ he added wistfully. I chuckled. ‘You’d have been proud of me the other day,’ I said, ‘when I did a very heroic deed and saved the life of a queer peer.’ And I related the incident in the Kensington Gardens bog. ‘It was all due to you, darling,’ I said. ‘I remembered what you do on trains.’ ‘I’m impressed and proud,’ James said. ‘But a Lord—a Baron, or something bigger do you suppose?’ ‘Looked like a Baron to me,’ I said—and with a silly smirk, ‘anyway you wouldn’t find a Viscount cottaging …’ ‘Not yet, you wouldn’t,’ James tartly rejoined. ‘Has he been in touch since?’ ‘He has not. A man just came along when the ambulance arrived and ran about saying “Oh dear, my Lord” and that kind of thing. I imagine we may never find out who it was.’ I looked at James. ‘But to think you do that all the time. God, I felt wonderful afterwards …’ ‘Yes; you get over that, you’ll find, should you ever do it again. But what about this boy? I suppose you’d better tell me.’ I must have bored James for many hours with the pitiless recollection of every detail of my sexual encounters. Often his response to my saying ‘I met this fucking wonderful man last night’ would be ‘Thank you, I don’t want to hear about it’—though this could never quite forestall at least a synopsis of the main events. The routine was a joke now, though behind it lay all his inhibitions, the uninvestigated secrecy of his own private life. Being a doctor, too, made him circumspect, as well as giving him a kind of authority for his lack of adventurousness. And even when I knew he had had some fling he would never mention it himself, so that lone events, which I suspected to be exceptional, could equally be interpreted as typical of a thriving sex life. Somehow he had made it impossible to ask him directly. ‘What is there to say?’

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  As we hugged and nosed around each other, he would push me to arm’s length and look me in the eye while he repeated something I had said. Odd words seemed to amuse or offend him, and he gave urchin imitations of my speech. ‘Arse-hale,’ he would drawl. ‘Get orf my arse-hale.’ Or if we were nattering in the kitchen as I woozily knocked up some supper, he would interrupt what I was saying and dance about shouting ‘No, no, no—listen, no—“cunt-stabulareh,” ’ and double up with laughter. Sometimes I laughed graciously too, and did even posher imitations of his mimicry, knowing no one was listening. Sometimes I caught him and gave him what he was asking for. So, the last couple of days, I had been closer with the booze, and it was all the nicer to have him loosened up but not cantering out of control. We had never been better together. Even so, the relief of being in the water again was intense; when he had made a phone call in the morning and said he’d go away for a day something inside me asserted ‘That’s right.’ I lent him a shirt, perhaps I gave it to him—pink silk, it suited his blackness as much as it did my fairness—kissed him chastely, told him to come back when he wanted, and, when he had gone, went round opening windows (it was a coldish spring day). I put clean linen on the bed, and could hardly wait for night-time and getting in there for a good sleep all by myself. I kept stretching out my arms and legs, like one of those queeny Sons of the Morning in a Blake engraving. After a while I took this further, and slammed through a set of pull-ups, press-ups and sit-ups—and then ached for the pool. So self-enclosed had my life been for the preceding week—broken only by five-minute trips to the local shop for cereals, tins and papers—that I looked on the public crowding the Underground platform with the apprehension and surprise that people feel on leaving hospital. I came up dripping and panting from the pool to the changing-room. As I pushed open the swing door with its steamed-up little window designed, like those in restaurants, to prevent hurrying people from knocking each other flat, I heard the hiss of the crowded showers, and felt the warm, dense atmosphere of the place in my throat and on my skin. I sauntered along between the two files of hot jets whose spray danced up off the black tiles, shifting or suddenly cutting off as the men, naked or in their trunks, edged about, soaped a foot raised against the wall, gave their stomachs resounding smacks, or turned, as the doors to the outside world thwacked open, to see what beauty had arrived.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I thought I’d never heard anything more beautiful and profound—I was in hysterics—I had to pull over and put on my hazard lights and I sat there weeping and weeping until it got on to a jolly section, which it always does with Haydn, bless him.’ ‘It is a good bit.’ ‘Unutterably great. Did we use to listen to it? I felt as though I knew it but hadn’t heard it for a thousand years. Anyway, back here, I thought what does this all mean? It means we must be as creative as possible—even if we can’t actually have children, we must give ourselves completely to whatever we do, as I’ve always sort of thought, we must make something out of everything we do.’ ‘Quite so.’ ‘And I thought, I must have a man.’ I was relieved that he saw the funny side of it. ‘Of course, I was still on call. All the same I put on some sexier clothes and a bit of mascara and really looked quite nice—a bit bald, but clearly an exceptionally nice guy. I had that old shirt with the button-down pockets that I put my bleep in—it looked like a packet of fags, I hoped. I went off down the Volunteer. I knew I couldn’t get drunk or anything, but I sipped my way down a Pils for about half an hour and then fell quite naturally into chat with a fellow—a Scotsman, but pleasant, black hair, jeans, sweatshirt, that sort of bruised look about the eyes, vulnerable, but dangerous: you know the type. You’ve probably had him, indeed.’ ‘Oh, him …’ I played along. ‘I bought him a drink, we talked about music: he said he played the violin. I said did he know The Creation? He did not, needless to say. I was trying to decide whether to accept a drink if he offered me one when another Scot came up and slapped him on the back and off they went.’ ‘I hope you weren’t put out.’ ‘The resolve did wobble a little. But I knew what I had to do, or rather what I had not to do. I hung about for a minute, but as can happen there it dawned on me dismayingly that I was by far the most attractive person in the room, and I wanted something ravishing and epic.

• From The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—and Us (2017)

  All this focus on women’s sexual pleasure might have left the guys feeling left out, diminished, the magnitude of their own pleasure compared unfavorably with that of women, their orgasms denigrated to mere plumbing. But that doesn’t mean that men don’t have terrific sex. So why are men’s orgasms so pleasurable? Recall that the male orgasm has always been explained as an adaptation to encourage males to pursue sexual opportunities. Natural selection for any behavior will often result in the evolution of physiological pleasure in that act. Animals need to eat, so eating when hungry has evolved to be rewarding, satisfying, and pleasurable. However, most men would agree, I think, that the pleasure of orgasm is far greater, more intense, and more rewarding than the pleasure of eating. So, I think it’s fair to conclude that male orgasm is more pleasurable than it needs to be in order simply to ensure reproduction—that is, more pleasurable than natural selection alone can account for. This leads me to the conclusion that natural selection is not the only mechanism involved in the evolution of the human male orgasm and that aesthetic evolution has also played a significant role. Although this is pretty speculative, I think it is clear that male orgasmic pleasure in humans has undergone an evolutionary expansion since the time of our shared ancestry with gorillas and chimpanzees. While other male apes pursue sexual opportunities with a fervor similar to men’s, they certainly don’t seem to enjoy sex as much as men do. The orgasms of male gorillas and chimpanzees do not appear to pack the same punch as those of human males. There is little foreplay, minimal touching, or even eye contact. After a brief moment of rapid thrusting, it’s over and both male and female go back to sifting through the leaf litter. Consider also the fact that the length of time to orgasm in chimpanzees averages around seven seconds versus a few minutes in men. If the quality of orgasmic pleasure is correlated at all with the amount of time it takes to get there—a not unreasonable physiological conjecture—then men certainly experience more sexual pleasure than male chimpanzees.