“
Bond is stronger than blood. The family grows stronger by bond.
”
”
Itohan Eghide (The Book of Maxims, Poems and Anecdotes)
“
My sister and I are so close that we finish each other’s sentences and often wonder who’s memories belong to whom.
”
”
Shannon Celebi
“
It was her last breakfast with Bapi, her last morning in Greece. In her frenetic bliss that kept her up till dawn, she’d scripted a whole conversation in Greek for her and Bapi to have as their grand finale of the summer. Now she looked at him contentedly munching on his Rice Krispies, waiting for the right juncture for launchtime.
He looked up at her briefly and smiled, and she realized something important. This was how they both liked it. Though most people felt bonded by conversation, Lena and Bapi were two of a kind who didn’t. They bonded by the routine of just eating cereal together.
She promptly forgot her script and went back to her cereal.
At one point, when she was down to just milk, Bapi reached over and put his hand on hers. ‘You’re my girl,’ he said.
And Lena knew she was.
”
”
Ann Brashares (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Sisterhood, #1))
“
You are blood. You are sisters. No man can break that bond.
”
”
Kim Boykin (A Peach of a Pair)
“
A sister is not a friend. Who can explain the urge to take a relationship as primal and complex as a sibling and reduce it to something as replaceable, as banal as a friend? Yet this status is used again and again to connote the highest intimacy. True sisterhood is not the same as friendship. You don't choose each other and there is no furtive period of getting to know each other. You are a part of each other, right from the start. Look at an umbilical cord—tough, sinuous, unlovely, yet essential—and compare it to a friendship bracelet of brightly woven thread. That is the difference between a sister and a friend.
”
”
Coco Mellors (Blue Sisters)
“
no one can help a troubled person who doesn’t think they need it.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Sisters share a bond unlike any other – thornier, but also tender, full of possibility.
”
”
Joy McCullough (Blood Water Paint)
“
I loved my mother because I didn’t know I had a choice. I had to love her.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
This is how we prepare for war, I thought as a dark peace wove between the queen and me. This is how we face the unexpected—not by our swords and our shields and our armor. Not even by the woad we paint upon our skin. We are ready because of sisterhood, because our bonds go deeper than blood. We rise for the queens of our past, and for the queens to come.
”
”
Rebecca Ross (The Queen's Rising (The Queen’s Rising, #1))
“
Dying, she thought, is the only way out of what is happening to me.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
She’d done exactly what she’d wanted to do. Making people unhappy was her way of having fun.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
We dropped our hands, both embarrassed by the sincerity of the moment. But I was learning, Sometimes you had to put it all out there, no matter how hard it felt to do so. When the people in your life were worth it, so was the risk.
”
”
Gwenda Bond (Double Down (Lois Lane, #2))
“
I know you don't want to be me. But I'd hate for you to ever feel like you're in my shadow. You're not and you never will be. You are awesome, and there is some kind of amazing future waiting for you.
”
”
Gwenda Bond (Double Down (Lois Lane, #2))
“
And I have to admit that there is something undeniably fulfilling about hunting with Rosie. Somehow, it makes me feel as if the long list of differences between us doesn't exist. We're dressed the same, we fight the same enemy, we win together ... It's as though for that moment I get to be her, the one who isn't covered in thick scars, and she gets to understand what it is to be me. It's different than hunting with Silas--he and I are partners, not part of the same heart.
”
”
Jackson Pearce (Sisters Red (Fairytale Retellings, #1))
“
From the inside, a violent home looks starkly different than it does to outsiders. Children who grow up with cold, narcissistic, or sadistic parents don’t know that a caretaker with the potential for extreme cruelty is not the norm. Even when they see a contrast in the families of friends, they’ve already been robbed of the ability to challenge parental authority. Instead of seeking help, they hunker down and adapt.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
It has been one of the greatest blessings of my life that my sister has been able to mirror my experience.
”
”
Nayomi Munaweera
“
She later said that she had only told the police “like ten percent of the bad stuff.” Investigators, however, understood that 10 percent of a nightmare is still a nightmare.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Victims of abuse can still love the monster. This ambivalent loyalty might just be the predator’s ultimate form of damage.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
It isn’t a mask that she wears to cover the past but an invisible badge of courage.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
It was not just friendship that we are attached to each other, it was sisterhood that made that bonding between us, but now that love doesn't exist anymore as people changes with time- that's reality.
”
”
Debolina
“
When we were little, Scarlett and I were utterly convinced that we'd originally been one person in our mother's belly. We believed that somehow, half of us wanted to be born and half wanted to stay. So our heart had to be broken in two so that Scarlett could be born first, and then I finally braved the outside world a few years later. It made sense, in our pig-tailed heads--it explained why, when we ran through grass or danced or spun in circle long enough, we would lose track of who was who and it started to feel as if there were some organic, elegant link between us, our single heart holding the same tempo and pumping the same blood. That was before the attack, though. Now our hearts link only when we're hunting, when Scarlett looks at me with a sort of beautiful excitement that's more powerful than her scars and then tears after a Fenris as though her life depends on its death. I follow, always, because it's the only time when our hearts beat in perfect harmony, the only time when I'm certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are one person broken in two.
”
”
Jackson Pearce (Sisters Red (Fairytale Retellings, #1))
“
FRIEND
Only when you have walked with me through the valley of hardship...
When you have fought beside me against an evil foe...
When you have cried with me through a painful heartache...
When you have laughed with me at life joyous moments...
When you have held my hand in silent sorrow at my loss...
When you have trusted me in spite of your doubts,,,
When you have believed in me when I lacked confidence to believe in my self...
When you have defended my honor against lying tongues...
When you have prayed for me when I was temped to go wrong...
When you have stood with me as others walked away...
Then and only then can you call me friend. For then you truly know ME.
Then you will have paid the price of sisterhood/brotherhood.
Then you will have forged a bond that will transcend time and live beyond life.
Then you will truly be called a FRIEND who sticks closer than a brother...
© 2013 From the book Meditations From my Garden by Stella Payton
”
”
Stella Payton
“
Victims who want to get help recognize how difficult it would be to convince authorities of the sadist’s behavior. They know that if they try but fail, the punishment will be severe. So, they often decide to just wait it out and hope they can eventually flee.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Above everything else, beyond the long hardships, one out- come is the most invaluable. The sisterhoods. The lifelong friends and bonds that will never lessen. Years can go by, and I will pick up with each of those sisters as if a single day hasn’t passed. Only we can truly understand one another; not even our husbands can fully grasp what we’ve been through with each other and how ironclad those bonds are.
”
”
Angela Ricketts (No Man's War: Irreverent Confessions of an Infantry Wife)
“
When women bond together in a community in such a way that “sisterhood” is created, it gives them an accepting and intimate forum to tell their stories and have them heard and validated by others. The community not only helps to heal their circumstance, but encourages them to grow into their larger destiny.
”
”
Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees)
“
Randy had an inkling that something else was afoot. Shelly’s father appeared too eager to pass his daughter off to another man.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Humor was the curtain she put around everything.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Some small towns are built on bloody earth and betrayal.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Sisters forever. Victims no more.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Enduring their mother was what bound them together. And while they might have had three different dads, they were always 100 percent sisters. Never half sisters.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Blood gets you related.
Loyalty, bond and treatment makes you family.
”
”
patrick cruz
“
Killing someone is something you never get over,” he said. “Not even for a second. It’s always there.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Their parents had killed multiple people. They’d done the most cruel and vile things anyone could do to another person. And so much of it had happened right before their eyes.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
that 10 percent of a nightmare is still a nightmare.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
The idea of "common oppression" was a false and corrupt platform disguising and mystifying the true nature of women's varied and complex social reality. Women are divided by sexist attitudes, racism, class privilege, and a host of other prejudices. Sustained woman bonding can occur only when these divisions are confronted and the necessary steps are taken to eliminate them.
”
”
bell hooks
“
I think as a kid I depended on her, her being my mom, I don’t think I ever thought I had any other options but to live with her. As an adult I kick myself for not doing something to help myself back then. My mother could show affection and say kind words when she wanted to . . . she would abuse me, then the very next day hug me or tell me how I was her baby and she loved me blah, blah. I think it worked like any abusive relationship
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
she would abuse me, then the very next day hug me or tell me how I was her baby and she loved me blah, blah. I think it worked like any abusive relationship . . . a person feels trapped, nowhere to go . . . they are abused and then the abuser reins them back in with kindness and the person being abused settles, not quite thinking about the next time they are beat etc. just relieved the abuse is over (for now). My mother was a ticking time bomb . . .
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
As Ba Ga and Banareng, our bond as a family is our insurance for the future. The key of brotherhood and sisterhood is that brothers and sisters carry the same genetic code. Together, united, they carry the legacy of their forefathers.
”
”
Pekwa Nicholas Mohlala
“
I think it worked like any abusive relationship . . . a person feels trapped, nowhere to go . . . they are abused and then the abuser reins them back in with kindness and the person being abused settles, not quite thinking about the next time they are beat etc. just relieved the abuse is over (for now).
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
A bent toward sadism forms during certain associations in early adolescence, coupled with a callous temperament that needs control and lacks remorse. Even so, more than one-third of sadists report discovering their perverted propensities well into adulthood; they enjoy the sense of authority that arises from having their way with a vulnerable and submissive human being, and their fantasies grow increasingly more sophisticated and perverse. Because they seek stimulation, they become quite inventive in the types of cruelties they inflict on others. The usual nurturing that accompanies parenthood means nothing to them.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Enduring their mother was what bound them together. And while they might have had three different dads, they were always 100 percent sisters. Never half sisters. Their sisterhood was the one thing the Knotek girls could depend upon, and really, the only thing their mother couldn’t take away. It was what propelled them to survive.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
The key of brotherhood and sisterhood is that brothers and sisters carry the same genetic code. Together, united, they carry the legacy of their forefathers. Our bond (through our shared blood/DNA) as Ba Ga Mohlala family/clan is our insurance for the future.
As Ba Ga Mohlala we can have our own Law firms, Auditing Firms, Doctors's Medical Surgeries, Private School, Private Clinics or Private Hospital, farms and lot of small to medium manufacturing, service, retail and wholesale companies and become self relient.
All it takes to achieve that is unity, willpower and commitment.
”
”
Pekwa Nicholas Mohlala
“
From Sister by ROSAMUND LUPTON
The rain hammered down onto your coffin, pitter-patter; ‘Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, I hear raindrops’; I was five and singing it to you, just born.
Your coffin reached the bottom of the monstrous hole. And a part of me went down into the muddy earth with you and lay down next to you and died with you.
Then Mum stepped forwards and took a wooden spoon from her coat pocket. She loosened her fingers and it fell on top of your coffin. Your magic wand.
And I threw the emails I sign ‘lol’. And the title of older sister. And the nickname Bee. Not grand or important to anyone else, I thought, this bond that we had. Small things. Tiny things. You knew that I didn’t make words out of my alphabetti spaghetti but I gave you my vowels so you could make more words out of yours. I knew that your favourite colour used to be purple but then became bright yellow; (‘Ochre’s the arty word, Bee’) and you knew mine was orange, until I discovered that taupe was more sophisticated and you teased me for that. You knew that my first whimsy china animal was a cat (you lent me 50p of your pocket money to buy it) and that I once took all my clothes out of my school trunk and hurled them around the room and that was the only time I had something close to a tantrum. I knew that when you were five you climbed into bed with me every night for a year. I threw everything we had together - the strong roots and stems and leaves and beautiful soft blossoms of sisterhood - into the earth with you. And I was left standing on the edge, so diminished by the loss, that I thought I could no longer be there.
All I was allowed to keep for myself was missing you. Which is what? The tears that pricked the inside of my face, the emotion catching at the top of my throat, the cavity in my chest that was larger than I am. Was that all I had now? Nothing else from twenty-one years of loving you. Was the feeling that all is right with the world, my world, because you were its foundations, formed in childhood and with me grown into adulthood - was that to be replaced by nothing? The ghastliness of nothing. Because I was nobody’s sister now.
I saw Dad had been given a handful of earth. But as he held out his hand above your coffin he couldn’t unprise his fingers. Instead, he put his hand into his pocket, letting the earth fall there and not onto you. He watched as Father Peter threw the first clod of earth instead and broke apart, splintering with the pain of it. I went to him and took his earth-stained hand in mine, the earth gritty between our soft palms. He looked at me with love. A selfish person can still love someone else, can’t they? Even when they’ve hurt them and let them down. I, of all people, should understand that.
Mum was silent as they put earth over your coffin.
An explosion in space makes no sound at all.
”
”
Rosamund Lupton
“
These things cannot be loved. The best man hates them most; the worst man cannot love them. But are these the man? Does a woman bear that form in virtue of these? Lies there not within the man and the woman a divine element of brotherhood, of sisterhood, a something lovely and lovable,—slowly fading, it may be,—dying away under the fierce heat of vile passions, or the yet more fearful cold of sepulchral selfishness—but there? Shall that divine something, which, once awakened to be its own holy self in the man, will loathe these unlovely things tenfold more than we loathe them now—shall this divine thing have no recognition from us? It is the very presence of this fading humanity that makes it possible for us to hate. If it were an animal only, and not a man or a woman that did us hurt, we should not hate: we should only kill. We hate the man just because we are prevented from loving him. We push over the verge of the creation—we damn—just because we cannot embrace. For to embrace is the necessity of our deepest being. That foiled, we hate. Instead of admonishing ourselves that there is our enchained brother, that there lies our enchanted, disfigured, scarce recognizable sister, captive of the devil, to break, how much sooner, from their bonds, that we love them!—we recoil into the hate which would fix them there; and the dearly lovable reality of them we sacrifice to the outer falsehood of Satan's incantations, thus leaving them to perish. Nay, we murder them to get rid of them, we hate them. Yet within the most obnoxious to our hate, lies that which, could it but show itself as it is, and as it will show itself one day, would compel from our hearts a devotion of love. It is not the unfriendly, the unlovely, that we are told to love, but the brother, the sister, who is unkind, who is unlovely. Shall we leave our brother to his desolate fate? Shall we not rather say, "With my love at least shalt thou be compassed about, for thou hast not thy own lovingness to infold thee; love shall come as near thee as it may; and when thine comes forth to meet mine, we shall be one in the indwelling God"?
”
”
George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons, Series I., II., and III.)
“
Staying at Home during this lockdown period is the right time to find your life purpose within Ba Ga Mohlala family/clan. This is an opportunity to know yourself better and to understand what motivates and feeds your mind and your soul, and also to find out as to where you fit in the bigger Ba Ga Mohlala family/clan.
All members of each family/clan possess characteristics, abilities, and qualities specific to that family/clan. It is up to the family/clan to distinguish itself amongst other families/clans.
Ba Ga Mohlala has become an institution to build cooperation in order to build and forge unity for social and economic benefits for Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng in general. An institution is social structure in which people cooperate and which influences the behavior of people and the way they live.
intelligence and assertiveness comes to us as our nature, it is in our blood (DNA) and all there is for us to do is to nature it and it will shine, otherwise it will gather dust and rust in us.
The key of brotherhood and sisterhood is that brothers and sisters carry the same genetic code. Together, united, they carry the legacy of their forefathers. Our bond (through our shared blood/DNA) as Ba Ga Mohlala family/clan is our insurance for the future.
As Ba Ga Mohlala we can have our own Law firms, Auditing Firms, Doctors's Medical Surgeries, Private School, Private Clinics or Private Hospital, farms and lot of small to medium manufacturing, service, retail and wholesale companies and become self relient.
All it takes to achieve that is unity, willpower and commitment.
”
”
Pekwa Nicholas Mohlala
“
I don't believe there is a bond between all women. I don't believe that sisterhood is powerful. I believe just the opposite. I believe these women were just in the right position to be kind. There was nothing to prevent them from it.
”
”
Emily Schultz (The Blondes)
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
The Raymond Torture Killings,
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
No-Doz and Vivarin to stay awake.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Washaway Beach, a spot on the Washington Coast known for its rapidly eroding beach, where ghost cabins and trailers hang over the swirling ocean and surfers ride the gray waves in the distance.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
cruelty is not the norm. Even when they see a contrast in the families of friends, they’ve already been robbed of the ability to challenge parental authority. Instead of seeking help, they hunker down and adapt.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
The usual nurturing that accompanies parenthood means nothing to them.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
She knows that what happened to her has altered her life in ways that are invisible, but though she chooses to think the best of people, she can’t do that when it comes to her parents.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
He labels as evil those parents who present a normal social persona to shield the harm they do in private. They serve their own needs and desires at the expense of their relatives, especially their children.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
handful. You can’t expect
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Les came to know something that few understood in the late sixties and seventies: no one can help a troubled person who doesn’t think they need it.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
It was that she knew that in a very real way the situation was hopeless.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Getting rid of a body did not get easier as he got more practiced at it.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
It didn’t take too much longer for Randy to decide that he couldn’t take it anymore—no matter how much he loved Nikki, he couldn’t ignore that his marriage, which had started on tenuous grounds, was now falling apart.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Sometimes hitting the pause button on a life beginning to spiral out of control by moving to a new house can actually reset the situation and make things better.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
If Anna passed by, it brought Lara a shudder of relief. Only then could Lara take a breath. A very deep one.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Her perpetual despondency preserved forever in black and white.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
no one can help a troubled person who doesn’t think they need it. Indeed
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
The scene was shocking, a horror show, and incongruous with the pretty bucolic setting of the country. Apple trees. Horses in the pasture. And a naked woman bound to a board and being dunked repeatedly.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
she woke up, unable to breathe through a pillow pressed over her face.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Kathy,” she repeated. “Can you hear me?” Kathy nodded and her eyes rolled backward.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
It's very important for women to build healthy bonds with other women. Those are connections that will nourish and love you for a lifetime. True sisterhood is beautiful.
”
”
Robin S. Baker
“
Shared memories are like jagged puzzle pieces. Sometimes they don’t exactly align with complete precision.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
she, grown learned in childish lore; thinking no innocent and pretty fancy ever to be despised; trying hard to know her humbler fellow-creatures, and to beautify their lives of machinery and reality with those imaginative graces and delights, without which the heart of infancy will wither up, the sturdiest physical manhood will be morally stark death, and the plainest national prosperity figures can show, will be the writing on the wall, —she holding this course as part of no fantastic vow, or bond, or brotherhood, or sisterhood, or pledge, or covenant, or fancy dress, or fancy fair; but simply as a duty to be done.
”
”
Charles Dickens
“
When somebody pushes, pushes, and pushes you into a corner, pretty soon you’re not going to want to be in that corner anymore.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Investigators, however, understood that 10 percent of a nightmare is still a nightmare.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Her butt was all bloody.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Shelly wanted her husband home to face the music for which she was the conductor. He had no place of refuge.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
He was always wondering when the other shoe would drop and Shelly would go into attack mode.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
She used to chop up bits of glass and put them in the bottom of [the kids’] boots and shoes,
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
I wish we could shrink her,” Sami suggested. “Make her supersmall and put her in a cage.” Nikki liked the idea but saw a pitfall. “She’d get out and bite our ankles!
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Most moms stayed home taking care of the children, maybe later returning to the workforce or taking classes at Clark College to continue dreams thwarted by conventions of the day and marriage.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
The gunshots you heard last night were from Kathy. Like the Lord Jesus Christ, SHE also arose from the dead and is back to revenge you. Ashes to ashes . . .
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
There was a tragic irony to the date. It was Kathy Loreno’s birthday. Missing for a decade, the woman who’d told the Knotek girls not to help her, out of fear that something would happen to them, would have turned forty-five that day.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
A book club is so much more than just a group of ladies reading the same book. There’s a sort of sisterhood that comes out of it. A bond that can’t be replicated anywhere else.
”
”
Anne-Marie Meyer (The Magnolia Inn (The Red Stiletto Book Club, #1))
“
Nikki started screaming for her mother, and suddenly—as in that very instant—Shelly appeared. “What is it?” she asked. “Baby, what’s wrong?” Nikki, crying, said someone had put a pillow over her face. “It was a bad dream,” Shelly said. Even then, Nikki knew better. “It wasn’t a dream, Mommy.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Over 15 years ago we pledged our Sisterhood. And promised we would always be there for each other. Today, we renew that commitment. Diane continued. To accept each other with all our flaws. Give encouragement and hope support each other through the laughter and tears. To listen with an attentive ear and kick each other's butts into gear when needed. And to celebrate the beauty and joy of this bond. Forever. [...] This is not goodbye. Just see you later. Until we meet again. To friendship, sisterhood, and living life with no reservations.
The sun was sitting on this chapter of their lives but tomorrow the sun would rise again and bring new life.
”
”
Sheryl Lister (No Reservations: A Novel of Friendship)
“
She was smart enough to see what was right in front of her, but survival mode gave Sami the singular ability to shove it all aside.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
to continue dreams thwarted by conventions of the day and marriage.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
She got a job in Oak Harbor at Baskin-Robbins and then a second one cleaning motel rooms.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
This new baby? An undisputed miracle, that’s what.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
The bond of sisterhood is eternal so that we can eternally drive each other crazy.
”
”
Lillian Lark (Three of Hearts (Harpies of a Feather #1))
“
The middle daughter, Sami, eventually returned to live in her hometown, the same small coastal Washington town where everything happened. She’s just turned forty and teaches at a local elementary school. She has corkscrew hair and an infectious sense of humor. Humor is her armor. It always has been. Like her older sister, Sami’s own children are what any mother dreams for their little ones. Smart. Adventurous. Loved.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Whenever she’s in the cleaning supply aisle of the local grocery store and her eyes land on the row of bleach, she turns away. Nearly a wince. She can’t look at it. She certainly can’t smell it. Like her sisters, it’s the little things—duct tape, pain relievers, the sound of a weed eater—that propel her back to a time and place where their mother did things they swore they’d hold secret forever.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Some small towns are built on bloody earth and betrayal. Battle Ground, Washington, twelve miles northeast of Vancouver, near the Oregon state line, is one such place. The town is named for an incident involving a standoff between the Klickitat nation and the US Army. The native people freed themselves from imprisonment in the barracks, but while a surrender was being negotiated, a single shot rang out, killing the Klickitat’s Chief Umtuch. It’s fitting for Michelle “Shelly” Lynn Watson Rivardo Long Knotek’s hometown to be known for a major conflict and a false promise. As it turned out, it was pretty much the way Shelly lived her life.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Anything could be a weapon. The kids knew it. Dave too. A spatula from a kitchen drawer, a fishing pole, an electric cord. Shelly Knotek would employ all of those—and anything else within her grasp—to beat her girls if she perceived they’d done something wrong. No matter how big. Or how small. When she found a punishment that worked, she looked for ways to make it even more effective, more brutal. The act of beating her children seemed to fuel her and excite her. She seemed to savor the rush of adrenaline that came with being on the attack.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
From Nikki’s perspective, it was like her mother and stepfather had started their life together with a poisoned kiss and a declaration of war. It was apparent to many, including Nikki, that Dave Knotek had been made less of a man by marrying Shelly. It was clear that her stepfather could barely function in his marriage to her mom.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Dave every ugly name under the sun. No kid wants to hear that.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
Shelly would call Dave every ugly name under the sun. No kid wants to hear that.
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)
“
When Shelly announced she was pregnant in the summer of 1974, everyone took a gulp of air. Maybe this would help?
”
”
Gregg Olsen (If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood)