Tenderness

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 Birthday Girl (2018)

  Camina hacia la piscina y comienza a jalar el tubo para aspirar. Me había olvidado completamente de eso. Había estado funcionando desde ayer por la tarde. —¿Un nuevo trabajo? —le pregunto, tomando la cuerda detrás de él—. ¿Dónde? —Es una sorpresa. —No me gustan las sorpresas. ¿Dónde es el trabajo? Comienza a reír, y frunzo el ceño. —¿Por qué te ríes? —exijo. ¿Sabe cuán preocupado está todo el mundo por él, y ahora actúa como si tuviera todo solucionado, y se supone que no debemos hacer preguntas? —Porque estoy emocionado —dice—. Te lo contaré pronto. Lo prometo. —¿Es legal? —Tomo el tubo, sintiendo el peso de la aspiradora mientras comienza a flotar a través de la piscina hacia nosotros. Le tiembla la espalda con otra risa. Levanto una ceja. —Lo prometo, este trabajo es lo más legal posible —me dice, sus palabras encierran un chiste privado que no entiendo—. Recibo un sueldo constante, seguro médico, dental, jubilación, todo completo. —Me mira—. No tomo drogas, y no estoy en problemas. Estoy absolutamente bien. Lamento, no haber estado cerca. Simplemente no quería que fuera incómodo para Jordan. Dejo caer el tubo, habiendo llegado casi al final. —Entonces, ¿estás bien? —pregunto, para puntualizar. —Sí. —¿Vendrás a casa? Pero se encoge de hombros, pareciendo inseguro. —Sería incómodo, creo. Quiero que Jordan se quede aquí todo el tiempo que necesite. Me acerco a él. Todavía soy un par de centímetros más alto, pero siempre me sorprende lo grande que parece cada vez que lo veo. Dudo en decirlo, porque no quiero que se vaya a ninguna parte, pero sé que el lugar de Cole está aquí. —Puedo encontrar un arreglo diferente para ella —digo. Puedo resolver algo para asegurarme que ambos estén cuidados.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  I will have to get back to you on this.) Twice now I have written books that began as presents to people I loved who were going to die. I’ve told you a little about my father’s diagnosis of brain cancer, how all of a sudden I had a sad story to tell. It was a story rich with drama and humor, about a father and his three semigrown children living in a tiny town filled with aging hippies, trust-fund radicals, artists, New Agers, and ordinary people, whatever that means. Out of nowhere, the rug was suddenly pulled out from under the family, when it looked as if the father had a terminal illness and was actually going to go ahead and die. So I started writing about our new life. I recorded moments of my brothers trying to help our father, trying to help one another, all of us trying to keep our senses of humor, trying to find meaning in it all, and saying what was really on our minds. There were lots of descriptions of the townspeople and the landscape that I’d already written that I still liked and could use. But the best stuff was what my father and brothers were going through right then, right at that moment. I scribbled down the funny things they said, the tender moments, the black humor, the weirdness of it all. Then I started shaping that material into self-contained stories. I showed them to my father, who thought it was great that all this pain and fear and loss were being transformed into a story of love and survival. He would hand me back my pages, raise his fist in the black-power salute, and smile. This was enough to keep me going. In a sense, I was giving him a love letter. He never got his version of the story written, but the miracle was that I finished mine while his brain was still working. He got to read the whole thing. He got to know that he and his story were going to exist long after he took off his dog suit and went to the great beyond. Another propellant for this first novel of mine was that I found myself desperate for books that talked about cancer in a way that would both illuminate the experience and make me laugh. But there weren’t very many. In fact, there was only one that I was aware of, Violet Weingarten’s Intimations of Mortality , a journal of her chemotherapy, from which I got my book’s epigram: “Is life too short to be taking shit, or is life too short to be minding it?”

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  A sad face will provoke comment and rumour.’ Then he called for a squire and a servant-girl. ‘Accompany your mistress,’ he told them. ‘You will soon find out where to go.’ So they took their leave, and attended Dorigen. They did not know where they were going, and Arveragus himself said not a word about his intentions. No doubt many of you would consider him to be a simpleton for placing his wife in such a compromising situation. But listen to the story before you come to any conclusion. She may have more luck than you imagine. Wait until the end. It so happened that Aurelius, head over heels in love with Dorigen, happened to meet her in the busiest street of the town. She had to go that way in order to make her rendezvous with him in the garden. He happened to be going in the same direction. He had kept watch on her, and checked on her movements whenever she left the house. Whether by accident or design, therefore, they encountered one another in the high street. He greeted her warmly, as you would expect, and asked her where she was going. She replied, in a distracted and almost mad fashion, ‘I am going to the garden. Where else? That’s what my husband has told me to do. He has ordered me to keep my word.’ Aurelius was astonished by her reply. Yet he felt pity for her guilt and obvious grief. He also felt sorry for Arveragus, who believed so strongly in the sanctity of the oath that he was unwilling to allow his wife to break it. So he felt compassion, and perhaps shame. He weighed up the matter, and decided that it was far better for him to forgo his lust than to perform a wretched deed. Principle came before pleasure. So he addressed Dorigen with a few well- chosen words. ‘Ma dame,’ he said, ‘send my greetings to your husband. Tell him from me that I recognize his graciousness towards you. I see your distress as well. I understand it. He would rather endure any shame than see your oath violated. In turn I would rather suffer any woe, however great, than come between you. I release you from your promise, ma dame. I renounce any claim I have upon you. I tear up any pledge or covenant there ever was between us. You have my word upon it. I will never take issue with you. I will never remonstrate with you, or rebuke you. And now I must say farewell to the noblest and truest wife in the world. Yet I will say this before I leave. Every wife must beware of large promises. Remember the plight of Dorigen. And I know this much. A lowly squire such as myself can be as honourable as the truest knight. Goodbye.’ She fell down on her knees, and thanked Aurelius for his generosity.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Finalmente, encuentra sus ojos con los míos, y noto que están rojos. No está feliz, pero está tratando de esconderlo. Jesús. Sacude la cabeza, luciendo arrepentida. —Acabas de salir del trabajo. Quieres relajarte, y ellos harán mucho ruido. Deja caer su mirada de nuevo, luciendo nerviosa. ¿Soy yo o es algo más? Hice lo correcto la noche anterior. No quiero que se sienta rechazada, porque ella haría a cualquier hombre el más afortunado del mundo. Algún día. Aunque, quizás no está molesta porque lo detuve. Quizás está molesta por todo lo que sucedió. Doy otro paso, bajando mi voz como si tuviera miedo de que los vecinos puedan escucharnos. —¿Estás molesta conmigo? —le pregunto. Abre sus ojos de repente, respondiendo rápidamente. —No. —Y entonces piensa antes de hablar—. Solo estoy tratando de aclarar algunas... cosas en mi cabeza. Puedo ver las lágrimas brotando de sus ojos, y me duele. ¿Por qué siempre quiero abrazarla? Inclina su cabeza tratando de esconder las lágrimas que no puede detener, subo un escalón hacia ella y dudo un momento antes de poner mi mano a un lado de su rostro. Mis dedos se envuelven alrededor de su nuca, y no me aleja. —Estoy aquí, ¿está bien? —susurro—. Nada va a cambiar. Todavía me encanta el olor de tus velas y el sonido de tu música en la casa. —Me detengo y luego añado—: Aunque no soy un gran fan de los Wraps de pepino que metiste a escondidas en mi almuerzo ayer. Rompe en una silenciosa carcajada mientras sus hombros se sacuden. Acaricio su mejilla con mi pulgar. —No voy a ir a ningún lado. Y la atraigo hacia mí, abrazándola contra mi pecho y deseando nada más que solo protegerla y darle todas las malditas cosas que no tiene. Envuelvo mi brazo libre a su alrededor, y después de un momento cede y sus brazos me envuelven, fundiéndose conmigo. Nos abrazamos tanto que no sé si la estoy sosteniendo o ella me está reteniendo, pero por un momento, tengo miedo de caerme si la dejo ir. —Tráelos aquí —le digo—. Te quitará la presión de tener que entretenerlos. Prepararé los flotadores y pediré pizza. Se aleja, sollozando, pero no hay más lágrimas brotando de sus ojos y esboza una media sonrisa. —A los niños les gusta solo de queso —dice, con un aire de paz en su expresión. —Sí, lo recuerdo. —Creo que a Cole todavía le gusta solo de queso, en realidad. Deja caer su bolso por la puerta donde estaba antes y me mira antes de irse, una comprensión estableciéndose entre nosotros. No estoy aquí para lastimarla. Siempre que me mantenga alejado de ella mejor que la noche pasada, entonces no lo haré.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  As she gave the infant to him, she told him to go and obey his master’s orders. ‘There is just one thing I ask of you,’ she said. ‘Out of consideration to me and my child. Unless our lord absolutely forbids it, I would ask you to bury her little body in a place where the carrion birds and wild beasts will not get at it.’ He made no answer to her, but left the chamber with the child in his arms. He went back to the marquis, and presented him with his daughter. Then he told him everything that Griselda had done and said. He went through every detail. The marquis, on hearing this, was inclined to pity his wife. Nevertheless he decided to hold to his original purpose. That is the way with lords. They are always masterful. He told his agent to convey the child to a secret place and to clothe her in the softest silks and linens; then he was to find a little box, or a shawl of linen, in which to hide her. Then on pain of his life he ordered him to remain silent about all these things, and to tell no one where he came from or where he was going. He was in fact going to Bologna, where the marquis’s sister was countess of the region; having explained the whole reason for the journey he was to leave the little girl with the countess, on the understanding that she would be properly brought up as a royal child. The countess was under no circumstances to tell anyone the identity of the infant. The servant obeyed his master’s orders to the letter. Let us return now to the marquis himself. Walter was eager to discover if his wife had changed in any way. He was alert to any alteration in her manner or her conversation. But there was none. She was as kind and as patient as ever. She was as industrious and meek as she had always been, ever ready to smile and obey. She never said a word about her daughter. There was no sign of sorrow or blame. She would not so much as murmur her name in her dreams. PART FOUR Four years passed. Then, thanks be to God, Griselda bore a male child, a strong and handsome baby. As soon as Walter heard the news he was overjoyed. The whole country celebrated the birth with bells and church services. When the child was two years old, and had finished with his wet nurse, the marquis was tempted to test his wife once more. There was no need for any of this, but men can become ruthless when they are married to patient and pliable wives. Griselda was at Walter’s mercy.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  Arthritis forms in my hands and in the hands my mind is using to shape things, in the hands of that creature in the cellar who wants and needs to use all of his favorite rags in the ragbag he works from. You are going to have to give and give and give, or there’s no reason for you to be writing. You have to give from the deepest part of yourself, and you are going to have to go on giving, and the giving is going to have to be its own reward. There is no cosmic importance to your getting something published, but there is in learning to be a giver. Your work as a writer, when you are giving everything you have to your characters and to your readers, will periodically make you feel like the single parent of a three-year-old, who is, by turns, wonderful, willful, terrible, crazed, and adoring. Toddlers can make you feel as if you have violated some archaic law in their personal Koran and you should die, infidel. Other times they’ll reach out and touch you like adoring grandparents on their deathbeds, trying to memorize your face with their fingers. One night I was lying in bed with Sam when he was about three and a half, and he touched my cheeks tenderly, as if they were sunburned. “I love that little face,” he said, and I felt like in a moment he might squeeze my cheeks and exclaim, “Mein shayner punim!” My beautiful face . And then the next day Sam was treating me like I was the bunny at his own private Playboy Club and he had run out of drinks half an hour before. But they are always yours, your books as well as your children. You helped bring your work into being, and every day you have to feed it, help it stay well, give it advice and love it when it ignores you. Your three-year-old and your work in progress teach you to give. They teach you to get out of yourself and become a person for someone else. This is probably the secret to happiness. So that’s one reason to write. Your child and your work hold you hostage, suck you dry, ruin your sleep, mess with your head, treat you like dirt, and then you discover they’ve given you that gold nugget you were looking for all along. Two things put me in the spirit to give. One is that I have come to think of almost everyone with whom I come into contact as a patient in the emergency room. I see a lot of gaping wounds and dazed expressions.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  Because we never subscribed to newspapers or magazines, I’d never known what was going on in the world, except for the skewed version of events we got from Mom and Dad—one in which every politician was a crook, every cop was a thug, and every criminal had been framed. I began to feel like I was getting the whole story for the first time, that I was being handed the missing pieces to the puzzle, and the world was making a little more sense. AT TIMES I FELT LIKE I was failing Maureen, like I wasn’t keeping my promise that I’d protect her—the promise I’d made to her when I held her on the way home from the hospital after she’d been born. I couldn’t get her what she needed most—hot baths, a warm bed, steaming bowls of Cream of Wheat before school in the morning—but I tried to do little things. When she turned seven that year, I told Brian and Lori that she needed a special birthday celebration. We knew Mom and Dad wouldn’t get her presents, so we saved for months, went to the Dollar General Store, and bought her a toy set of kitchen appliances that were pretty realistic: The agitator in the washing machine twisted around, and the refrigerator had metal shelves inside. We figured when she was playing, she could at least pretend to have clean clothes and regular meals. “Tell me again about California,” Maureen said after she opened the presents. Although she had been born there, she couldn’t remember it. She always loved hearing our stories about life in the California desert, so we told them to her again, about how the sun shone all the time and it was so warm that we ran around barefoot even in the dead of winter, about how we ate lettuce in the farm fields and picked carloads of green grapes and slept on blankets under the stars. We told her that she was blond because she’d been born in a state where so much gold had been mined, and she had blue eyes the color of the ocean that washed onto California’s beaches. “That’s where I’m going to live when I grow up,” Maureen said. Although she longed for California, the magical place of light and warmth, she seemed happier than the rest of us kids in Welch. She was a storybook-beautiful girl, with long blond hair and startling blue eyes. She spent so much time with the families of her friends that she often didn’t seem like a member of our family. A lot of her friends were Pentecostals whose parents held that Mom and Dad were disgracefully irresponsible and took it upon themselves to save Maureen’s soul. They took her up like a surrogate daughter and brought her with them to revival meetings and to snake-handling services over in Jolo. Under their influence, Maureen developed a powerful religious streak.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  (Who was it that said, “A critic is someone who comes onto the battlefield after the battle is over and shoots the wounded”? I have it written on an index card somewhere.…) Other cards just sort of live with me, in little piles and drifts. My son will probably have to deal with them someday, after my death. They are my equivalent of all the cats that those nutty Bouvier aunts own. But my cards do not smell or shed or go wee-wee on the floors, and I think Sam should be aware that he is getting off easy. Most of them will not make much sense to him. There are many with just one or two words on them that would have reminded me of entire scenes and empires, but he will have to stand there scratching his head. But he will also find some dated in the early nineties, and they will contain complete stories about how he blew me away, how he made me shake my head with wonder and a kind of relief. Like this one, dated 9-17-93: Sam and I walked Bill and Adair up to their car after dinner. Crisp cold starry night. Bill, holding Sam, inhaled deeply. “Doesn’t it smell wonderful, Sam?” he said. Sam inhaled deeply, too, like he was smelling a delicious meal, looked off into space, and said, “It smells like moon.” Now that memory won’t be lost. I’m not sure if I will use it in my writing—actually, I guess I just did—but I know it won’t be lost. Nor will the details of an early morning the two of us spent recently in an emergency room, where Sam was having his first asthma attack. We were both afraid and sad and did not quite know what was going on, but Sam was hooked up to a nebulizer, with a mask over his mouth and nose, and I was sitting beside him on his bed, wishing I had thought to grab a toy as we left the house. So I looked inside my purse and managed to come up with a tiny box of crayons from a restaurant and two used index cards. One contained a shopping list, the other a brief description of the sky. I drew a terrible giant on the blank side of each card. Sam, sucking away at his mask, watched me with fear. Next I poked holes in each of the giants’ right hands, and stuck tongue depressors through the holes. Then I staged a vigorous, clicking sword fight. Sam’s eyes grew wide, and he smiled. After a long while he could breathe again freely, and we were told we could go home.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  He used the word “textured.” He said “smooth” was boring but “textured” was interesting, and the scar meant that I was stronger than whatever it was that had tried to hurt me. • • • We pulled into the drive. Jessica, John’s fifteen-year-old daughter from his first marriage, came out of the house, along with Brian and his eight-year-old daughter, Veronica, and their bull mastiff, Charlie. Brian hadn’t seen much of Mom since Dad’s funeral, either. He hugged her and immediately started ribbing her about the plucked-from-the-Dumpster presents she’d brought for everyone in the shopping bags: rusting silverware, old books and magazines, a few pieces of fine bone china from the twenties with only minor chips. Brian had become a decorated sergeant detective, supervising a special unit that investigated organized crime. He and his wife had split up around the time Eric and I did, but he had consoled himself by buying and renovating a wreck of a town house in Brooklyn. He put in new wiring and plumbing, a new firebox, reinforced floor joists, and a new porch all on his own. It was the second time he’d taken on a true dump and restored it to perfection. Also, at least two women were after him to marry them. He was doing pretty darn well. We showed Mom and Lori the gardens, which were ready for winter. John and I had done all the work ourselves: raked the leaves and shredded them in the chipper, cut back the dead perennials and mulched the beds, shoveled compost onto the vegetable garden and tilled it, and dug up the dahlia bulbs and stored them in a bucket of sand in the basement. John had also split and stacked the wood from a dead maple we’d cut down, and climbed up on the roof to replace some rotted cedar shingles. Mom nodded at all our preparations; she’d always appreciated self-sufficiency. She admired the wisteria that wrapped around the potting shed, the trumpet vine on the arbor, and the big grove of bamboo in the back. When she saw the pool, an impulse seized her, and she ran out onto the green elastic cover to test its strength, Charlie the dog loping after her. The cover sagged beneath them, and she fell down, shrieking with laughter. John and Brian had to help pull her off as Brian’s daughter, Veronica—who hadn’t seen Mom since she was a toddler—stared wide-eyed. “Grandma Walls is different from your other grandma,” I told her. “Way different,” Veronica said. John’s daughter, Jessica, turned to me and said, “But she laughs just like you do.” • • • I showed Mom and Lori the house. I still went into the office in the city once a week, but this was where John and I lived and worked, our home—the first house I’d ever owned.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Cerrando los ojos, siento el peso de la fatiga en mis párpados y la agradable sensación de agotamiento. Es del tipo que sabes que te mereces, porque trabajaste duro ese día. Pero después de veinte minutos, mi mente todavía está corriendo. Mi cuerpo está agotado por hoy, pero mi cerebro no. Cuando suena mi celular, estoy bastante segura que es la señal de que no estoy destinada a dormir esta noche. Lo traigo hasta mis ojos, entrecerrándolos por la luz brillante. Pike. Frunzo el ceño. —¿Hola? —Lo sostengo en mi oído, bostezando de nuevo. —Hola —dice como esperando que no contestara—. Yo... a-acabo de ver que son más de las tres, y no había nadie en casa, así que solo quería ver que todo estaba bien. Asegurarme que todo estaba bien. Me pongo de lado, todavía usando mi brazo inferior como almohada, y sostengo el teléfono junto a mi oreja con la otra mano. —Estoy bien. —Sonrío ante su preocupación y broma—. ¿Tengo un toque de queda o algo así? —No —responde, y puedo escuchar el humor en su voz—. Quédense afuera y diviértanse. Hagan sus cosas. Yo solo... —Hace una pausa por un momento y luego continúa—: Sabes, no te preocupas por cosas que desconoces. Cuando Cole no vivía conmigo, no siempre sabía dónde estaba o qué estaba tramando, así que no pensaba al respecto todo el tiempo. Ahora, ustedes dos viviendo bajo mi techo, parece que me preocupo constantemente. —Suelta una carcajada—. Ese bar es peligroso. Solo quería asegurarme que saliste del trabajo de forma segura y que todo está bien. Solo estoy... asegurándome. No me ofende su comentario. No es mi bar, después de todo, y sí, es peligroso. Estoy tentada a ver si quiere venir a buscarme después de todo, ya que está despierto, pero mi orgullo no me deja. No quiero ser un problema. Y definitivamente no quiero ser responsable de crear problemas entre él y Cole. Puedo pelear mis propias batallas. —Sí. Todo está bien —miento, agregando un poco de burla a mi voz—. No soy una niña, ¿sabes? —De alguna forma lo eres. Resoplo. Bueno, niña o no, creo que es bueno tener a alguien que cuide de mí.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  The contraption consisted of a glass pitcher, with a lemon squeezer that fit on top and that had a holding tank for the lemon juice. What you did was to fill the pitcher with water and ice cubes and sugar, then put the squeezer—with its holding tank—on top, squeeze a bunch of lemons, then pour the lemon juice from the holding tank into the pitcher. Finally, you got your long spoon and stirred. The lemon googe and seeds stayed on top in the juice squeezer. The whole thing was very efficient, but if you thought about it too long, totally stupid, too. So there we were in the kitchen, the five cousins and me, crowded around her at the sink as she proudly made us lemonade. She put the cold water in the pitcher, added ice cubes, lots of sugar, put the juicer lid on top, squeezed a dozen lemons, and then began to take glasses down from the cupboards. Wait! we older ones wanted to cry out, you haven’t poured in the lemon juice. Stop! Mistakes are being made! But she got out jelly glasses, plastic glasses, a couple of brilliant aluminum glasses, and poured seven servings. There we were, six anxious black-belt codependents, unable to breathe, with a longing for everything to be Okay and for her not to feel sad anymore. She raised her glass to us as a toast, and we all took sips of our sugary ice water, and my aunt’s hands were so lemony from cutting and squeezing all those lemons that she must have tasted lemon. We all stared at her helplessly as we drank our sugar water, then smiled and raised our glasses like we were doing a soft-drink commercial, and held them out for more. I perfectly remembered, there on the salt marsh, the crummy linoleum on my aunt’s kitchen floor, graying beige speckled with black, and how it wore away to all black near the sink, and how at its most worn place, rotten wood showed through. And how all those cousins, some so young they must have thought ice-cold sugar water was about as good as the getting got, stood at the sink with us older kids, in a ring around my aunt. And how close I felt to them all, how much a part of the wheel. It touches me so deeply, the poignancy of the crummy linoleum, of my aunt’s pain and her pride in her lemonade-making machine, of all the ways in which we try to comfort ourselves, of her wanting to make us better lemonade, of us wanting to make her better, the enthusiasm with which we drank and held out our glasses, as if we were hoisting steins at Oktoberfest. And I hadn’t remembered any of this in twenty-five years. Now, maybe I’m not going to use it anywhere.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  My New Age friends claim that they’ve started groups by just “putting it out to the universe.” Now, I love this sort of talk; I always picture the universe hearing the call, and flipping breathlessly through its little Rolodex, because these friends have all ended up in flourishing writing groups. So who’s to say? There are four people, three women and one man, who met in one of my classes and who have now been meeting as a group for four years. I see them together in bookstores or cafés, where they sit at tables with wine or coffee and go over each other’s work, offer criticism and encouragement, ask questions, and figure out where to go next. They do not actually edit each other’s drafts, which is something we’ll talk about in the next chapter, but they listen to each other’s work and help each other to keep at it. Sometimes they’ll drop in on one of my classes, like the seniors dropping by freshmen basketball practice. They end up giving the new students rousing pep talks about how great it is to be part of a writing group, how much they’ve come to care for one another, how it helps them get their work done. They’ve gone from being four tense, slightly conceited, lonely people who wanted to write to one of those weird little families we fashion out of whoever’s around us. They’re very tender with one another. They all look a lot less slick and cool than they did when they were in my class, because helping each other has made their hearts get bigger. A big heart is both a clunky and a delicate thing; it doesn’t protect itself and it doesn’t hide. It stands out, like a baby’s fontanel, where you can see the soul pulse through. You can see this pulse in them now. All four of them are excellent writers, but only one of them has been published at all, and that was just one article. But you know what? They love each other. They still look forward to their meetings after all these years. They are better writers and better people because of their work with each other. Almost always at least one of them is well and able to help, while someone else is always on the verge of giving up and dropping out of the group.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  The contraption consisted of a glass pitcher, with a lemon squeezer that fit on top and that had a holding tank for the lemon juice. What you did was to fill the pitcher with water and ice cubes and sugar, then put the squeezer—with its holding tank—on top, squeeze a bunch of lemons, then pour the lemon juice from the holding tank into the pitcher. Finally, you got your long spoon and stirred. The lemon googe and seeds stayed on top in the juice squeezer. The whole thing was very efficient, but if you thought about it too long, totally stupid, too. So there we were in the kitchen, the five cousins and me, crowded around her at the sink as she proudly made us lemonade. She put the cold water in the pitcher, added ice cubes, lots of sugar, put the juicer lid on top, squeezed a dozen lemons, and then began to take glasses down from the cupboards. Wait! we older ones wanted to cry out, you haven’t poured in the lemon juice. Stop! Mistakes are being made! But she got out jelly glasses, plastic glasses, a couple of brilliant aluminum glasses, and poured seven servings. There we were, six anxious black-belt codependents, unable to breathe, with a longing for everything to be Okay and for her not to feel sad anymore. She raised her glass to us as a toast, and we all took sips of our sugary ice water, and my aunt’s hands were so lemony from cutting and squeezing all those lemons that she must have tasted lemon. We all stared at her helplessly as we drank our sugar water, then smiled and raised our glasses like we were doing a soft-drink commercial, and held them out for more. I perfectly remembered, there on the salt marsh, the crummy linoleum on my aunt’s kitchen floor, graying beige speckled with black, and how it wore away to all black near the sink, and how at its most worn place, rotten wood showed through. And how all those cousins, some so young they must have thought ice-cold sugar water was about as good as the getting got, stood at the sink with us older kids, in a ring around my aunt. And how close I felt to them all, how much a part of the wheel. It touches me so deeply, the poignancy of the crummy linoleum, of my aunt’s pain and her pride in her lemonade-making machine, of all the ways in which we try to comfort ourselves, of her wanting to make us better lemonade, of us wanting to make her better, the enthusiasm with which we drank and held out our glasses, as if we were hoisting steins at Oktoberfest. And I hadn’t remembered any of this in twenty-five years. Now, maybe I’m not going to use it anywhere.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  My priest friend Margaret, who works with the aged and who shared this image with me, wanted me to see that even though these old people are no longer useful in any traditional meaning of the word, they are there to be loved unconditionally, like trees in the winter. When you write about your characters, we want to know all about their leaves and colors and growth. But we also want to know who they are when stripped of the surface show. So if you want to get to know your characters, you have to hang out with them long enough to see beyond all the things they aren’t. You may try to get them to do something because it would be convenient plotwise, or you might want to pigeonhole them so you can maintain the illusion of control. But with luck their tendrils will sneak out the sides of the box you’ve put them in, and you will finally have to admit that who they are isn’t who you thought they were. Dying people can teach us this most directly. Often the attributes that define them drop away—the hair, the shape, the skills, the cleverness. And then it turns out that the packaging is not who that person has really been all along. Without the package, another sort of beauty shines through. For instance, on a retail-therapy outing ten days before she died, my friend Pammy discovered that she could no longer write her name on checks, and she turned to me and said, “What is the point of being alive when you can’t even sign checks?” I could only shrug and shake my head. But it turned out that the essence of Pammy wasn’t about the things she could do with her hands. Who she was wasn’t about doing at all. On the first anniversary of her death, I visited a memorial garden at the radiation clinic where she had been treated, and discovered that someone had planted a yew tree there in her honor. The yew was bigger than me and fuzzy, like an Edward Koren character. It looked like it might suddenly come over and hug me. Near the yew were tall flowering bushes—some kind of poppy, perhaps. But almost all of the petals had fallen off, so mostly I just saw a thousand tangled stems growing skyward. Then I realized that the stems were actually connected, and that they bore seeds that would flower again in the spring.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  On the final morning of Vix’s visit, Caitlin says, “I’d like to see those pictures now.” They’re having breakfast in their room, with the shutters thrown open so they can watch the boats gliding gracefully along the canal. Vix hands the photos of Maizie to Caitlin and watches as she carefully studies each one. “Is she sad?” Caitlin asks. “She looks sad in this picture.” “Sad? No. She’s quiet, sensitive, but I wouldn’t describe her as sad. She loves to hear stories about you.” “What do you tell her?” “About us … when we were young. I take her to the Flying Horses. She calls her favorite horse Mudhead.” Caitlin looks away for a minute. “Is she okay with Abby and Lamb?” “Abby’s a …” She’s about to say that Abby is a good mother, a loving mother, but that would imply Caitlin wasn’t, so she stops herself. “I always thought Abby would be a good mother if she weren’t so intense.” “She’s more relaxed with Maizie.” Caitlin nods. “What about Bru?” “He spends time with her, especially in summer.” “That’s not what I mean.” “Married to Star, from the health food store. He always had a thing for vitamins.” They laugh for a minute then Caitlin grows serious again. “Do they have …” “A boy and she’s pregnant again.” Caitlin sips her cappuccino. This can’t be easy for her but Vix reminds herself she’s the one who left. “What about you …” Caitlin asks. “Are you happy?” Vix holds her belly. She thinks about how lucky she is to have Gus, the baby that’s coming. Her life is filled with friendship and love. She gets teary and homesick thinking of all of them. “Yes, I’m happy,” she tells Caitlin. “No regrets?” “Regrets?” “About Bru …” Bru? It’s funny, because when she sees him now he’s more like an old friend than a lover. They talk about Maizie, about the building bust of the late eighties and early nineties. Business is picking up again since the President vacationed on the Vineyard two summers in a row. The islanders gripe about the influx of the rich and famous, but the rich and famous are good for the local economy. “No regrets about Bru,” she tells Caitlin. But she does have regrets. She regrets that Nathan’s life was cut short, that she and Lanie and Lewis aren’t close. Most of all, she regrets that Caitlin couldn’t confide in her, couldn’t ask for her support, because she understands now that Caitlin must have been deeply troubled to walk out on Bru, to leave Maizie. So she says, “I have regrets about you.” “Me?” Caitlin says. “That you couldn’t come to me when you were struggling,” Vix tells her, “when you were in pain.” “You think I was struggling? You think I was in pain?” Vix nods. “Why can’t you see me for what I am?” Caitlin asks.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  He knows her name—Charlotte, like his favorite treat from the bakery. She takes a puff on her cigarette. Precious child … she says, and her voice is as warm and soft as his blanky. Would you like to come in with me? He takes off his underpants because you’re supposed to get naked before you get in the tub. She holds his hand as he steps over the edge and sits opposite her. He offers her his tugboat. Thank you , she says and she makes it swoosh through the water. This is what it would be like to have a real mother , he thinks, someone who likes to play in the tub. Someone with a laugh that bubbles up like the ginger ale Nurse brings him when he has a tummy ache. She takes a sip from the glass that’s resting on the floor. Want some? she asks. It tastes like grape juice . He knows it’s not grape juice. It’s something grownups drink. No thank you , he tells her. Her breasts bob up and down in the water. He reaches out to touch them, looking into her eyes for approval, wondering if she’ll slap his hands like Nurse. But no, she laughs. I have a good pair, don’t I? He chokes up for a minute, thinking about her. She must have been in her twenties then. A young woman with long chestnut hair pinned on top of her head. His mother’s best friend. She gave him a photo album filled with pictures of the two of them. Charlotte and Amanda . Summer friends like Caitlin and Vix. It’s a shock to think his mother would be her age now. [image file=Image00006.jpg] OUTSIDE , the Countess lit up again, took a few puffs, then flicked the butt into the woods, where it sparked. Lamb raced after it and stomped it out before it could catch fire. “That’s a dangerous thing to do, Charlotte, especially this time of year, with everything so dry.” “I’ve always lived dangerously, Dear Boy.” “Now, Charlotte … as much as I like you, I can’t let you burn down the island. There are laws …” “Oh, fuck the laws … fuck the island!” She took Vix’s hand, raised it to her lips, and kissed it twice. “Remember this, Precious Child … nothing matters but the moment. There might be no tomorrow and even if there is, nobody gives a damn.” Vix didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. Or if she was waiting for her hand to be kissed. Vix hoped not. She was relieved when the Countess laughed and headed back to the house, where she asked for another vodka and tonic. This time Tawny put a hand on her arm. “Tawny is my savior,” the Countess said. “I don’t know where I’d be without her. If only she didn’t have that family. Such a burden. Such an albatross.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  comenzar las festividades. A las once, todos estaban borrachos, la pizza ya no estaba, pero bueno, me guardaron un pedazo de pastel. Tuve que ir al baño para no llorar frente a ellos cuando vi el lugar. Aparentemente, comenzó una pelea durante la fiesta, los vecinos se quejaron del ruido, Cole los insultó, y él y otro de sus amigos fueron llevados para que se calmaran. Mel, el propietario, declaró en términos inequívocos que ya había tenido suficiente y que Cole tenía que irse. Fui bienvenida a quedarme, pero no había forma de que pudiera pagar todo por mi cuenta. No después de haber agotado mis ahorros ayudando a reparar su auto el mes pasado. Y, gracias a Dios, la policía lo dejó ir sin fianza esta vez, porque no tenía cien dólares para exprimir de ninguna parte, mucho menos dos mil quinientos. —Eres su hijo —le recuerdo a Cole, agarrando mi lámpara de pie, una de las únicas cosas importantes que no almacenamos, ya que el padre de Cole ya tenía una de las habitaciones extras amuebladas—. ¿Pero quedarme aquí también, que él pague todas las cuentas? No es correcto. —Bueno, no creo que sea correcto por mi parte tener que prescindir de esto todos los días —bromea con una sonrisa engreída mientras me acerca a él y me rodea con sus brazos. Suelto la lámpara y sonrío, complaciendo su alegría a pesar que me siento mal. Ha pasado mucho tiempo desde que me sentí a gusto el tiempo suficiente para olvidarme del estrés que nos golpeaba en todo momento. No hemos sonreído juntos desde hace tiempo, y está empezando a no ser algo natural. Pero en este momento, tiene ese brillo infantil en sus ojos como si fuera el tornado más adorable y dijera “¿no me amas?”. Planta su frente en la mía, entrelazo mis dedos a través de su cabello rubio y miro sus ojos azul oscuro que siempre dan la impresión de que acaba de recordar que tiene un pastel entero esperando en el refrigerador. Tomando mi mano derecha en la suya, levanta ambas entre nosotros, y estrecho la suya en la mía, sabiendo lo que está haciendo. Nuestros dedos se envuelven alrededor de la mano del otro, nuestros pulgares uno al lado del otro, y sostiene mi mirada, mientras los mismos recuerdos pasan entre nosotros. Para cualquier otra persona, parece un agarre de lucha libre, pero cuando miramos hacia abajo, vemos nuestros pulgares uno al lado del otro y la pequeña cicatriz del tamaño de un guisante que ambos tenemos y compartimos solo con una persona más. Es tonto cuando le contamos a la gente la historia: El arma de balines del hermano pequeño de un amigo, que era demasiado pequeña para nuestras manos, y nos lastimamos la piel cuando tratábamos de usarla, los tres nos reímos

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  ―Oh, gracias. ―Se acerca, y se lo entrego―. Aunque, no pasa nada ―me dice―. Pude haber comido algo del camión de comida. No tenías que molestarte. ¿Camión de comida? ―Bueno, no podía dejar que comieras basura de un camión de comida ―digo. Y para mi alivio, sonríe un poco. ―Es básicamente lo mismo que hay aquí ―recalca, poniendo la lonchera sobre una mesa de trabajo. Pero estoy muy por delante de él. ―Bueno, también metí un burrito de pavo, queso y pepino, en caso que quisieras algo diferente. Su rostro cae. ―No te preocupes ―bromeo―. Tu almuerzo sigue ahí. Solo hice demasiado y necesitaba ayuda para terminar los burritos. El leve miedo en sus ojos se disipa, y respira. ―¿No serás feliz hasta que coma humus, cierto? Intento no reír. ―Te construiré lentamente. Pone los ojos en blanco, y finalmente respiro profundo. Supongo que terminamos la discusión. Me quedo ahí, sintiendo sus ojos sobre mí, y los sonidos de martillos golpeando y la brisa soplando a través de la estructura se desvanecen lentamente. Entonces me doy cuenta que Dutch todavía está en la habitación. Ambos lo miramos, y su mirada se mueve entre nosotros. ―Iré... ―traga y se aclara la garganta―, a hacer algo ―dice y se va, dejándonos solos. Miro de nuevo a Pike, y supongo que también debería irme y dejarlo, pero en cambio, deslizo mis manos en mis bolsillos y miro alrededor. ―El aserrín huele bien ―le digo. Una sonrisa cruza sus ojos, y asiente, mirando alrededor. ―Sí. Es como estar en casa para mí. Cuando nuestras miradas se encuentran otra vez, el calor se desliza en mi vientre, y olvido respirar por un momento. Aparto la mirada rápidamente.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  She knew that the manners of the table reflect the manner of a life. She deported herself very well, in other words, and was amiable and pleasant in all of her dealings. She tried very hard to imitate courtly manners, and remained very dignified on all occasions; she deemed herself to be worthy of respect and, as a result, came to deserve it. Of her sensibility, there can be no doubt. She was so compassionate that she wept whenever she saw a mouse caught in a trap; even the sight of its blood made her lament. Against the rules of her order she had some small dogs that she fed with roasted meat and milk and fine white bread. She never let them out of her sight, in case one of them was trampled beneath the hooves of the horses or perhaps kicked by a fellow pilgrim. Then there would have been tears galore. You can be sure of that. She was all sympathy and tender heart. You have seen a prioress before, no doubt, but she was a very model of her kind. Her wimple was carefully arranged to show her features to their best advantage - her well-formed nose, her eyes as bright as the glass that comes from Venice, her little mouth as soft and red as a cherry. She was also eager to display the beautiful span of her forehead, that token of truthfulness. Her cloak was well made and finely embroidered, and about her arm she carried a rosary of coral with green beads. That was not her only decoration. She sported a bracelet of gold that was surmounted by the letter ‘A’ and then, beneath, the legend ‘Amor vincit omnia’. Love conquers everything. I presume that she was referring to divine love. I did not ask her about that, either. In fact she seemed a little cautious of me, and I would sometimes catch her staring

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  Or, as Marianne Moore put it, “The world’s an orphan’s home.” And this feels more true than almost anything else I know. But so many of us can be soothed by writing: think of how many times you have opened a book, read one line, and said, “Yes!” And I want to give people that feeling, too, of connection, communion. The other is to think of the writers who have given a book to me, and then to write a book back to them. This gift they have given us, which we pass on to those around us, was fashioned out of their lives. You wouldn’t be a writer if reading hadn’t enriched your soul more than other pursuits. So write a book back to V. S. Naipaul or Margaret Atwood or Wendell Berry or whoever it is who most made you want to write, whose work you most love to read. Make it as good as you can. It is one of the greatest feelings known to humans, the feeling of being the host, of hosting people, of being the person to whom they come for food and drink and company. This is what the writer has to offer. [image file=Image00006.jpg] Here is the best true story on giving I know, and it was told by Jack Kornfield of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre. An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatible with hers, and if so, he could be the blood donor. They asked him if they could test his blood. He said sure. So they did and it was a good match. Then they asked if he would give his sister a pint of blood, that it could be her only chance of living. He said he would have to think about it overnight. The next day he went to his parents and said he was willing to donate the blood. So they took him to the hospital where he was put on a gurney beside his six-year-old sister. Both of them were hooked up to IVs. A nurse withdrew a pint of blood from the boy, which was then put in the girl’s IV. The boy lay on his gurney in silence while the blood dripped into his sister, until the doctor came over to see how he was doing. Then the boy opened his eyes and asked, “How soon until I start to die?” Sometimes you have to be that innocent to be a writer. Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence; it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it’s right.