Sweetheart Daughter Quotes

Roses are for love. Not silly sweet-hearts' love but the love that makes you and keeps you whole, love that gets you through the worst your life'll give you and that pours out of you when you're given the best instead.

CUSTOMER: OK, so you want this book? THEIR DAUGHTER: Yes! CUSTOMER: Peter Pan? THEIR DAUGHTER: Yes, please. Because he can fly. CUSTOMER: Yes, he can - he's very good at flying. THEIR DAUGHTER: Why can't I fly, daddy? CUSTOMER: Because of evolution, sweetheart.

Your daughter went to bed on the eve of her thirteenth birthday as a sweetheart, and woke up the next morning a bitch. You never stopped loving her, but goddamn, you had a lot of days when you didn’t like her. At all.

CUSTOMER: Do you have a book with a list of careers? I want to give my daughter some inspiration. BOOKSELLER: Ah, is she applying to university? CUSTOMER: Oh no, not yet. She’s just over there. Sweetheart? (a four year old girl comes over) CUSTOMER: There you are. Now, you talk to the nice lady, and I’m going to find you a book on how to become a doctor or a scientist. What do you think about that? (The girl says nothing) CUSTOMER (to bookseller): Won’t be a sec. (Customer wanders off into non-fiction) BOOKSELLER: So, what’s your name? CHILD: Sarah. BOOKSELLER: Sarah? That’s a beautiful name. CHILD: Thank you. BOOKSELLER: So, Sarah, what do you want to be when you grow up? CHILD: . . . A bumblebee. BOOKSELLER: Excellent.

Sweetheart, even when you’re fifty years old and I’m pushing ninety, I’ll still worry about you. You’re my daughter and I love you.

*I don't want the body,* she whimpered. *It hurts.* *Not always, sweetheart. Not always. Without the body, how will you hear a bird's song? How will you feel a warm summer rain on your skin? How will you taste nutcakes? How will you walk on a beach at sunset and feel the sand and surf under your... hooves?*

Your path isn’t an easy one, sweetheart. But it might just end up being spectacular.” She turned brilliant blue eyes on her daughter. “You have to fight for what you want, and I know you’ll win. Every damn time.

I've been so lonely, mother, I decided to converse with my belly button, it talks just like my sweetheart but sometimes does not obey. I've seen yours, it really has a big smile; I guess as you get older your navel becomes more expressive.

Roses are for love. Not forget-me-not, honeysuckle, silly sweethearts’ love but the love that makes you and keeps you whole, love that gets you through the worst your life’ll give you and that pours out of you when you’re given the best instead.

Your daughter went to bed on the eve of her thirteenth birthday as a sweetheart, and woke up the next morning a bitch. You never stopped loving her, but goddamn, you had a lot of days when you didn’t like her. At all. Eighth grade to sophomore year, Alex often referred to Deane as “the exchange student.

I like him, sweetheart, and I’ll still give him hell. It’s my total right.

He built up her fire, wrung out a flannel, and hung it on the screen to warm while trying not to contemplate what his pet names for Sophie would be. Love. My love. He’d called her that already. Sweetheart. My dear. When

The fact is, it can be as high as ninety-nine point nine percent. Ninety-nine point nine.” Then she stopped and wrapped her arms around her daughter. “It’s my fault, sweetheart. With the exception of pi, we really haven’t covered decimals yet.

Emma's mid-twenties had brought a second adolescence even more self-absorbed and doom-laden than the first one. 'Why don't you just come home, sweetheart?' her mum had said on the phone last night, using her quavering, concerned voice, as if her daughter had been abducted. 'Your room's still here. There's jobs at Debenhams' - and for the first time she had been tempted. Once, she thought she could conquer London. She had imagined a whirl of literary salons, political engagement, larky parties, bittersweet romances conducted on Thames embankments. She had intended to form a band, make short films, write novels, but two years on slim volume of verse was no fatter, and nothing really good had happened to her since she'd been baton-charged at Poll Tax Riots.

I say it sometimes to my daughter, who feels things so deeply. “There’s always a solution, sweetheart. You just haven’t imagined it yet.” I don’t know why I say it, because it has never comforted her. “You always say that, but in this case, THERE IS NOT!” she replies. I guess I want it to seep in somewhere deep in her subconscious, so that someday, when she is up against something truly awful, when the rug is pulled out from under her, some part of her will remember: that there is always a solution, that suffering is not forever, that some meaning can be found in even the direst of situations. I

I don’t want to crush your heart, sweetheart, but, aside from the fact that it would be impossible for a man like me to do that, it’s just plain not happening. I’d kill any idiot who was dumb enough to try to date a daughter of mine.” “If they were anything like me, you’d be more than happy to pay someone to take them off your hands.” She giggled

Brystal, you're not responsible for anyone's happiness but your own — including mine," Mrs. Evergreen said. "The last time we spoke, I told you to leave this horrible place and never return because that's what it was — a horrible place. I didn't think it was possible to change it. But then something amazing happened — someone came along and showed me nothing was impossible." "Who?" Brystal asked. "You, sweetheart," Mrs. Evergreen said. "I thought, If my daughter can change the world, then I can make changes, too. Without your example, I would never have had the courage to stand up to your father. So in may ways, you did save me. And not just me — you've inspired thousands of other people to improve their lives, too. I hope you know how special that is.

Remember, there are infinite stories about separation. By infinite stories, that is to say that there is this story, & only this story, told many different ways. Sometimes the hand is not a hand but a sweetheart or a daughter or a house on fire. Anything can be part of oneself & anything can be taken away. Sometimes the truck is a fishing boat or a Boeing 747 or a blocked telephone number. Sometimes the abandoned never makes it free of the forest.

Roses are for love. Not silly sweethearts’ love but the love that makes you and keeps you whole, love that gets you through the worst your life’ll give you and that pours out of you when you’re given the best instead.… There aren’t many roses around anymore because they need more love than people have to give ’em, to make ’em flower, and the only thing that’ll stand in for love is magic, though it ain’t as good, and you have to have a lot of magic, like a sorcerer.…

If your daughter kills herself, whose business is that? When you think you know what’s best for her, it’s not love. How can you know what’s best for her? How can you know that life would be better for her than death? You would deprive her of her whole path. Who do you think you are? There’s no respect there. If my daughter is going to take her life and I know about it, I’m going to speak to her and offer myself in whatever way she thinks would be useful. And if she has killed herself, I’m not going to think, Sweetheart, you should have stayed here for my sake. I know you were suffering abominably, but you really should have stayed here and suffered so that I wouldn’t feel terrible. Is that love? Do you really want her to live in the torture chamber of her own mind? When our suffering gets too intense, we can inquire, and if we don’t have inquiry, some of us just knock out our painful thoughts with a gun or pills or whatever it takes, but we have to shut this system down. And it’s hell to open your eyes in the morning when you have this painful thought system going.

But now that I'm older, I realize life isn't a fairy tale. And no matter how much work you put into it, happily ever after doesn't exist." Of all the things his daughter had said so far, this concerned John the most. He took Alex by the hands, sat her at the kitchen table, and had a seat beside her. "Sweetheart, happily ever after does exist, it's just not what you think," he said. "Happily ever after isn't a solution to life's problems or a guarantee that life will be easy; it's a promise we make ourselves to always live our best lives, despite whatever circumstance comes our way. When we focus on joy in times of heartbreak, when we choose to laugh on the days it's hard to smile, and when we count our blessings over our losses - that's what a true happily ever after is all about. You don't get there by being perfect; on the contrary, it's our humanity that guides us. And that's what fairy tales have been trying to teach us all along." "But what about death?" Conner asked. "How do you keep living a happily ever after when you lose someone you love?" "Now you're troubled over something you can't control," John said. "The only power we have over death is how we choose to define it. Personally, when someone dies, I don't believe they cease to exist. The people we love the most will always be alive, thanks to the stories we tell and the memories we share. As long as we keep our loved ones in our hearts, their pulse will continue to beat through our own.

They entered the summer parlor, where the Ravenels chatted amiably with his sisters, Phoebe and Seraphina. Phoebe, the oldest of the Challon siblings, had inherited their mother's warm and deeply loving nature, and their father's acerbic wit. Five years ago she had married her childhood sweetheart, Henry, Lord Clare, who had suffered from a chronic illness for most of his life. The worsening symptoms had gradually reduced him to a shadow of the man he'd once been, and he'd finally succumbed while Phoebe was pregnant with their second child. Although the first year of mourning was over, Phoebe hadn't yet returned to her former self. She went outdoors so seldom that her freckles had vanished, and she looked wan and thin. The ghost of grief still lingered in her gaze. Their younger sister, Seraphina, an effervescent eighteen-year-old with strawberry-blonde hair, was talking to Cassandra. Although Seraphina was old enough to have come out in society by now, the duke and duchess had persuaded her to wait another year. A girl with her sweet nature, her beauty, and her mammoth dowry would be targeted by every eligible man in Europe and beyond. For Seraphina, the London Season would be a gauntlet, and the more prepared she was, the better.

Vim?” “Sweetheart?” The whispered endearment spoken with sleepy sensuality had Sophie’s insides fluttering. Was this what married people did? Cuddled and talked in shadowed rooms, gave each other bodily warmth as they exchanged confidences? “What troubles you about going home?” He was quiet for a long moment, his breath fanning across her neck. Sophie felt him considering his words, weighing what to tell her, if anything. “I’m not sure exactly what’s amiss, and that’s part of the problem, but my associations with the place are not at all pleasant, either.” Was that…? His lips? The glancing caress to her nape made Sophie shiver despite the cocoon of blankets. “What do you think is wrong there?” Another kiss, more definite this time. “My aunt and uncle are quite elderly, though Uncle Bert and Aunt Essie seem the type to live forever. I’ve counted on them living forever. You even taste like flowers.” Ah, God, his tongue… a slow, warm, wet swipe of his tongue below her ear, like a cat, but smoother than a cat, more deliberate. “Nobody lives forever.” The nuzzling stopped. “This is lamentably so. My aunt writes to me that a number of family heirlooms have gone missing, some valuable in terms of coin, some in terms of sentiment.” His teeth closed gently on the curve of her ear. What was this? He wasn’t kissing her, exactly, nor fondling the parts other men had tried to grope in dark corners—though Sophie wished he might try some fondling. “Do you think you might have a thief among the servants?” He slipped her earlobe into his mouth and drew on it briefly. “Perhaps, though the staff generally dates back to before the Flood. We pay excellent wages; we pension those who seek retirement, those few who seek retirement.” “Is some sneak thief in the neighborhood preying on your relations, then?” It was becoming nearly impossible to remain passively lying on her side. She wanted to be on her back, kissing him, touching his hair, his face, his chest… “Or has some doughty old retainer merely misplaced some of the silver?” Vim muttered right next to her ear. “You’ll sort it out.

Sweetheart the doctor gave you the okay, and your friends will be there. It's okay to live your life. You can't be afraid at every turn.

You should wear this. It’ll help your arm heal faster.” Pink tinged her pale cheeks. “I tried to wrap it but couldn’t get it to stay.” He tossed the bandage out, letting it untwist. She tensed up but didn’t move away as he stopped in front of her. “Hold your arm out.” She held it out thumb up, with her other hand cupped beneath it for support. Chad’s jaw clenched when he saw the bruising running up her pale arm. Fingerprints from her husband and from the strain itself. Dragging oxygen into his lungs, he fought for something to say. “Your daughter is a sweetheart.” Some of the tension eased from her frame. “Yes, she is. She is my reason for life.” “I can see that. And I think it’s mutual. She worries about you a lot.” “I know,” she whispered. Her throat sounded tight. Chad wrapped her arm as carefully as he could, uncomfortable that he was giving her a close-up look at his own damage. Only fair, I guess, considering. She cleared her throat as he wound the bandage around and around her arm, and he knew what was coming. “What happened?” He shrugged. “Iraq happened. I got burned in an explosion. Landmine.” She cringed. “I’m sorry.” “Why?” He forced a grin. “You didn’t do it.” She blinked as if she were caught off guard by the way he reacted to it but didn’t say anything more. Just

What's this?" I asked, putting her cup on the counter next to the plate. "Rocky Road Bars," she supplied with a shrug. "Is that some kind of message?" I asked, head dipped. "Message?" she asked, her brows drawing together and proving that it wasn't. "Never mind," I said, shaking my head, feeling a small wave of relief even if she was standing there wound like a clock for some untold reason. Maybe that was the reason that when she shrugged at me and went to reach for her coffee, I reached over the counter, snagged her chin in my thumb and forefinger and leaned in to lick a small bit of chocolate from beside her lips from where she had smudged it. Her entire body stiffened then trembled at the contact. It was all the encouragement I needed. So right there, a dozen eyes no doubt on us, I framed her face in my hands and pressed my lips to hers. There was nothing sweet or chaste about it. I fucking devoured her mouth, my tongue moving to invade, drawing a quiet whimper from her as her hands slammed down on the counter. The sound was enough to remind me that I couldn't take it any further right then and there and better stop before either of us got too worked up. But as I pulled away and her eyes fluttered open and all I could see was a deep desire there, I knew she was a little bit more worked up than I intended. There were a couple chuckles and one brave soul let out a loud whistle as we pulled apart, making my smile tip up slightly, knowing I had just, whether I truly intended it or not, staked a claim. I let the whole town know that I was messing around with one of their favorite daughters. "I hate you right now," she said, her voice airy, her cheeks pink, her lips swollen. "No you don't," I countered, shaking my head. "You just hate that you can't climb over this counter and let me fuck you right here and now. Don't worry, you can have me all to yourself in just a couple of hours. If you can control yourself until then..." "Control myself," she hissed, both looking slightly outraged and equally amused. "I believe you were the one half-mauling me in public." "And I'm pretty sure it was your tongue moving over mine and your whimper I heard, right? Or was that Old Mildred. Hey, Milly..." I started to call, making Maddy's eyes bulge comically as she slammed her hand into my shoulder hard enough to send me back a foot. "Shut up!" she hissed, making me let out a chuckle. "Alright fine. You made your point," she said, shaking her head as she reached for her coffee. "What was my point, exactly?" I asked, curious. "You just like... marked your territory or whatever," she said, rolling her eyes at the very idea, but a small smile pulled at her lips. "So, what, you're mine now?" "Oh, I, well... I thought..." she fumbled, shaking her head at her lack of explanations. "Relax, sweetheart," I said, saving her from her misery. "Like I said last night, I'm in. You were the one who came in all anti-social this morning." "That had nothing to do with you," she informed me, looking almost pained. "Alice?" "My mom needs to find some friends to talk to about sex, Brant. I can't take it. I can't," she said, looking horrified. "I thought I was a cool, mature, experienced, metropolitan woman. But when your mom starts talking about blowjobs, it makes you really, really want to stick your fingers in your ears and scream 'I'm not hearing this, I'm not hearing this' until she shuts up." "Traumatized for life, huh?" "He's coming over tonight. Did I mention that part? He's coming to dinner and then, ah, staying the night. Because apparently it's... serious. Do they still sell earplugs at the pharmacy? I think I might actually die if I have to listen to them doing it.'' I laughed at that, finding myself charmed by her embarrassment. "Tell you what, why don't you come to my place for dinner.

This is part of being married?” Joseph’s hand stroked slowly over her hair, and Louisa thought for a moment he hadn’t heard the question—or maybe she hadn’t spoken aloud. “It is part of you being married to me.” There was an implication in his words Louisa was too scattered to parse. Insights—into old passages of verse, into her siblings’ marital devotion, into her own parents’—floated in the haze that passed for her thoughts. “Can one do this repeatedly? Successively? Nine times in a row?” “One can if she’s female and has some time on her hands. We fellows would find ourselves challenged to keep that sort of pace—though the attempt would certainly be pleasurable in the right company.” His tone suggested Louisa was the right company for him, which did nothing to restore her composure. “Why doesn’t anybody tell a young lady about these things?” “Young men all over England are whispering to their sweethearts about things like this. Perhaps the old fellows are too, if they’re lucky.

Is this man bothering you, sweetheart?” Nolan said, coming forward and placing a proprietary hand on her shoulder. Sarah half turned and jumped, clearly startled. “Nolan! I’m glad you’re here. Please, just take me home.” Her face was flushed dully red with misery as she reached for his arm and took hold of it. He looked down into her eyes, hoping she read the love in them. “Of course.” Then he looked back at Holt, making sure the man wasn’t going for a gun. He wasn’t, but if looks could kill, Nolan knew he would have been sprawled on the floor. Clearly conscious of his enthralled audience, Holt’s face screwed itself into a mask of scorn as he looked him up and down. “This is the fellow you left me for? This Yankee swell in a frock coat? How could you, Sarah? Your ma an’ pa must be rollin’ in their graves, knowin’ their daughter’s cozy with a Yankee.” “That’s enough,” Nolan snapped. “The lady’s leaving, and you’re not to bother her further.” Holt cocked his head and drawled, “I declare, he talks funny.” A few of the onlookers chuckled. Nolan clenched his fists, but Sarah’s hand tightened on his wrist. “Please, let’s just go.” They turned and started for the door, but Holt wasn’t done. “You’ll be sorry, Sarah! This whole town’s gonna be sorry you threw me over!

So,” he said, “an old man goes to his daughter and says, ‘Sweetheart, I’m really worried about Alzheimer’s. If I ever start showing signs of that, like being forgetful, I want you to kill me.’ The daughter says, ‘Dad, you told me that five minutes ago.

Because maybe he hurt her or broke her heart and that’s what made her do it.’ ‘Oh, Claire, oh, sweetheart,’ my sister says and she comes to stand next to me at the kettle, wrapping her soft arms around me and simply holding me tight. The move is so unexpected that I can’t help sobbing in her arms and soon my mother, my sister and I are wrapped in a bizarre group hug, tears flowing and noses running. I am not alone, I realise, I am surrounded by my family, by those who loved Julia as I did. After a few minutes I let go of Emily and we all part.

I'm a sick bastard?!" He spat. "You have an "on the down-low" son and a whore for a daughter and I'm the sick one? Oh no sweetheart, I think you need to reevaluate the situation. Your children are nothing to be desired. Now, stop trying to distract me with your nonsense, I have a promise to fulfill.

Share this post with twenty people on your friends list or . . . you’re not really my friend. SERIOUSLY?? Never mind that we grew up together, that I held your hair back in college while you puked, was the maid of honor in your wedding, held your hand while you pushed out that giant baby of yours, wet-nursed your daughter and drove you to the courthouse to get a divorce. Never mind all that. If I share this post—THAT’S how you’ll know we’re friends. Makes total sense.

Those she met were wary at first-they saw the house and sword, they saw the fish-mail and spears and heard the way she spoke, and hid their gold and their daughters. But she learnt to hide most of her strength, hide her real self, drop her voice, and use the rougher tongue the common folk spoke on the fellside; she learn to use her soft face, hard muscles, and sweet smile to remind them of some son or nephew or long-ago sweetheart. And then they saw the careful mends of mismatched gear and the missing pommel stone, the bony unbitted horse, and set aside their misgivings for a while.

My seven-year-old daughter, Emma, is standing at the doorway to our bedroom, watching me contemplate what to do with her father’s favorite T-shirt. Even though we’ve already had breakfast, she’s still wearing her Frozen pajamas, which are royal blue with little snowflakes all over them. I guiltily shove the T-shirt back into the drawer and turn to smile at Emma. She doesn’t smile back. While her big brother is excited about the idea of staying with Aunt Penny for a week, Emma is decidedly freaked out. For the last week, Emma has crawled into our queen-sized bed every single night to sleep. Fortunately, Noah and I sleep with a gap the size of the Atlantic Ocean between us. “What’s wrong, honey?” I ask. Emma’s lower lip trembles. She runs over to me and wraps her skinny arms around my hips. “Don’t go, Mommy. Please.” “Emma…” I attempt to pry her off me, but she’s stuck like glue. It’s sweet. As much as I dislike my husband, I love my children. I’ve always loved children. It’s part of the reason I became a teacher. Nothing makes me happier than seeing the smiles light up those little faces. I reach down and wipe Emma’s damp light brown curls from her face. Her hair looks like mine, but it’s still baby soft. I lean in and bury my face in it—it smells like her watermelon shampoo. “It’s just a week, sweetheart,” I say. She looks up at me with her little tear-streaked cheeks. “But what if something happens to you?” I don’t know how my seven-year-old daughter got so neurotic. She worries about everything, including things no child has any business worrying about. Like when there was talk of a teacher strike last year, she was worried I wouldn’t have a job and we wouldn’t be able to afford food. What seven-year-old worries about that? “Why are you so worried, Emma?” She chews on her little pink lip. “Well, you’re going to be in the woods.” I don’t blame her for worrying if that’s what she thinks. Neither of her parents is what you would call “the outdoorsy type” by any stretch of the imagination. “Don’t worry,” I say. “We’re staying in a nice hotel. It will be really safe.

Of course, he’d long resented Rick for pinning Kaylyn to his hip. They had a certain Ohio symmetry Bill could never mimic. They were sweethearts who were born in this town and believed in it, believed they were fated to raise a family here and cheer for all the Jaguar teams as long as civilization stayed standing. Bill was a transplant, a New Yorker who accidentally grew up in this struggling shitburgh, who just happened to fall for its native daughter.

I need some time for the rest. I just don’t take something like marriage lightly. If I do it, I’ll mean it, and I won’t change my mind. But I think you’d do it right now for all the wrong reasons.” “Does this have anything to do with the guy you didn’t let stay last night?” he asked. “My boyfriend?” she asked, smiling. She knew it was naughty to taunt him like that; she wasn’t thinking of T.J. as a boyfriend at the moment. “It would be nice of me to tell him if things change in my personal life. But until I have matters settled…” “No, Franci, tell him matters are settled. You won’t be dating him!” “And the woman who keeps calling you?” “What woman?” he asked. “Your phone keeps picking up text messages and voice mails. That has to be a woman.” He took a deep breath. This didn’t seem like a good time to lie, just as he was trying to close a deal. “I dated this girl a few times back at Beale and I told her I wasn’t getting into a steady thing. When I went on leave, I told her we had to cool it because it wasn’t working for me, but she’s deaf. I thought when I left town for a couple of months she’d let it go, but she’s hounding me. I’m going to call her, Franci, and tell her I’m off the market. That I’m getting married. She won’t call anymore. Now, come on.” “Poor thing,” Franci said. “She might be as sick in love with you as I was.” “As you were?” he asked, a little frightened of the answer. “And I said I’m not marrying you.” “Okay, let me get this right—I suggested marriage and you said no?” “How about that? What a shocker, huh?” “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do? I thought that’s what I should do!” “Okay, you still don’t get it. We don’t want to because you’re doing what you should. Listen carefully, Sean. I want you to be absolutely sure you want to commit to a life with me and Rosie, because you don’t have to marry me to have time with your daughter. She’s your daughter—I won’t get in the way of that. Though I have to admit, the way you suggested marriage really just knocked me off my feet.” He would never admit it to anyone, but her refusal gave him an instant feeling of relief. He wasn’t ready to take it all on. But it would sure make things tidier if they could just do it the way it probably should be done. He slid close to her and, before she could protest, pulled her right up against him. “You wanna get knocked off your feet, sweetheart? Because we both know we do that to each other.” He put a big hand around the back of her neck and ran his thumb from her earlobe to the hollow of her throat. Then he kissed that spot. “I want you with me, Franci. Tonight, and from now on.” “Sean,” she said gravely, “when you rejected me four years ago, there were times I wondered if I’d lost my mind and my heart. The things we said to each other—I don’t want to risk a marriage like that. After we split and I moved to Santa Rosa, sometimes I grieved so badly I worried that I was hurting the baby with endless crying, sleepless nights, loss of appetite. I just can’t face something like that again.” He ran a knuckle across her soft cheek. “Baby, I didn’t reject you. I wanted to be with you—I just had a hang-up with marriage.” “Well, now the shoe’s on the other foot. Suck it up.” Life

A little girl and her father were crossing a bridge. The father was kind of scared so he asked his little daughter: “Sweetheart, please hold my hand so that you don’t fall into the river.” The little girl said: “No, Dad. You hold my hand.” “What’s the difference?” asked the puzzled father. “There’s a big difference,” replied the little girl. “If I hold your hand and something happens to me, chances are that I may let your hand go. But if you hold my hand, I know for sure that no matter what happens, you will never let my hand go.

My lord.” St. Just stopped just inside the door and bowed to the older man. “I didn’t mean to impose, but came to fetch the mare and thought I’d—” “Here they come!” St. Just looked up to see a half-dozen very young ladies trotting up the hallway in a giggling, laughing cloud of skirts and smiles. “Another guest, girls! This is Lord Rosecroft. Make your curtsies and then line up.” The ladies assembled with an alacrity that would have done St. Just’s recruits in Spain proud. “All right, Rosecroft, best be about it. They get bold if you make ’em wait.” St. Just looked askance at his host, who was grinning like a fiend. “It’s the kissing bough,” Vim Charpentier said as he emerged from the hallway, a tumbler in his hand. “You have to kiss them each and every one, or they’ll pout. And, Rosecroft, they’ve been collecting kisses all afternoon between trips to the punch bowl, so you’d be well advised to acquit yourself to the best of your ability. They will compare notes all year. So far, I believe I’m your competition.” He took a sip of his drink, eyeing his cousins balefully. “I’ve charged headlong into French infantry,” St. Just said, smiling at the ladies, “praying I might survive to enjoy just such a gauntlet as this.” He went down the line, leaving a wake of blushes, kissing each cheek until he got to a little girl so small he had to hunker down to kiss her. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” “Cynthia Weeze Simmons.” “The prettiest has been saved for last.” He kissed a delicate cheek and rose. “Any more? I was cavalry, you know, legendary for our charm and stamina.” This was said to tease the young ladies, but they all looked at their grandfather without breaking ranks. “Once with you lot is enough,” the old man barked. “Shoo.” They departed amid more giggles. Sindal looked disgruntled. “You made that look easy.” “I have daughters, and I’m half Irish. It was easy, also fun.

There’s a story. A little girl and her father were crossing a bridge. The father became concerned and instructed his daughter, Sweetheart, please hold my hand so that you don’t fall into the river. The little girl said, No, Dad, you hold my hand. The father was puzzled and asked, What’s the difference? The little girl answered him, If I hold your hand and something happens to me, chances are that I may let your hand go. But if you hold my hand I know for sure that, no matter what happens, you will never let my hand go.” He focused hard on her. “Are you going to hold my hand? No matter what?