When Husband Shouts At You Quotes

Will looked at his sister. “And you don’t care about being a Shadowhunter. How is this: I shall write a letter and give it to you if you promise to deliver it home yourself — and not to return.” Cecily recoiled; she had many memories of shouting matches with Will, of the china dolls she had owned that he had broken by dropping them out an attic window; but there was also kindness in her memories: the brother who had bandaged up a cut knee, or retied her hair ribbons when they came loose. That kindness was absent from the Will who stood before her now. Her mother had used to cry for the first year or two after Will went; she had said, in Welsh, holding Cecily to her, that they — the Shadowhunters — would “take all the love out of him.” A cold, unloving people, she had told Cecily, who had forbidden her marriage to her husband. What could he want with them, her Will, her little one? “I will not go,” Cecily said, staring her brother down. “And if you insist that I must, I will — I will —” The door of the attic slid open and Jem stood silhouetted in the doorway…

There seems to be a superstition among many thousands of our young who hold hands and smooch in the drive-ins that marriage is a cottage surrounded by perpetual hollyhocks, to which a perpetually young and handsome husband comes home to a perpetually young and ravishing wife. When the hollyhocks wither and boredom and bills appear, the divorce courts are jammed. Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he's been robbed. The fact is that most putts don't drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just ordinary people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. . . . Life is like an old-time rail journey—delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.

Nina continued staring at Carrie but didn’t say anything. How was it that this woman could shout out every thought running through her head? Why was it that Carrie Soto felt so entitled to scream? In that moment, Nina was not mad or jealous or embarrassed or anything else she might have expected. Nina was sad. Sad that she’d never lived a fraction of a second like Carrie Soto. What a world she must live in, Nina thought, where you can piss and moan and stomp your feet and cry in public and yell at the people who hurt you. That you can dictate what you will and will not accept. Nina, her entire life, had been programmed to accept. Accept that your father left. Accept that your mother is gone. Accept that you must take care of your siblings. Accept that the world wants to lust after you. Accept accept accept. For so long, Nina believed it was her greatest strength - that she could withstand, that she could endure, that she would accept it all and keep going. It was so foreign to her, the idea of declaring that something was unacceptable. Nina thought of herself driving to someone else’s house to scream on their front lawn while a whole party’s worth of people watched. It was so impossible that she couldn’t even summon a mental picture. But Carrie had this fire within her. Where was Nina’s fire? Had it ever been there? And if so, when did it go out? Her husband had slept with Carrie last night and then Nina had taken him back this evening. What was wrong with her? Was she just going to accept it all? Just accept every piece of bullshit thrown at her for the rest of her life?

Everything is about to go to hell very quickly, so I want one moment where we don't talk about that. We pretend it doesn't exist. I want one last quiet moment with you." "No, Loki." I shook my head, but I didn't pull away. "I told you that one night wasn't enough." Loki leaned down, kissing me deeply and pressing me to him. I didn't even attempt to resist. I wrapped my arms around his neck. It wasn't the way we had kissed before, not as hungry or fevered. This was something different, nicer. We were holding on to each other, knowing this might be the last time we could. It felt sweet and hopeful and tragic all at once. When he stopped kissing me he rested his forehead against mine. He breathed as if struggling to catch his breath. I reached up and touched his face, his skin smooth and cool beneath my hand. Loki lifted his head so he could look me in the eyes, and I saw something in them, something I'd never seen before. Something pure and unadulterated, and my heart seemed to grow with the warmth of my love for him. I don't know how it happened or when it had, but I knew it with complete certainty. I had fallen in love with Loki, more intensely than anything I had felt for anyone before. "Wendy!" Finn shouted, pulling me from my moment with Loki. "What are you doing? You're married! And not to him!" "Nothing slips by you, does it?" Loki asked. "Finn," I said, and stepped away from Loki. "Calm down." "No!" Finn yelled. "I will not calm down! What were you thinking? We're about to go to war, and you're cheating on your husband?" "Everything's not exactly the way it seems," I said, but guilt and regret were gripping my stomach. My marriage might be over, but I was still technically wed to another man. And I should be worrying about things more important than kissing Loki. "It seemed like you had your tongue down his throat." Finn glared at us both. "Well, then, everything is exactly as it seems," Loki said glibly.

When I was doing the Mademoiselle application my husband would peer over my shoulder and say, "What are you doing competing with the best brains in the country? Why don't you just wash the dishes?" When the telegram came from Mademoiselle, I ran outside and shouted, "Guess who has the best brains in the country?

To the one and only Alex Jenkins Reid: Thank you for understanding why this book was so important to me and for being so into it. But more important, thank you for being the kind of man who encourages me to shout louder, dream bigger, and take less shit. Thank you for never making me feel as if I should make myself smaller to make anyone else feel better. It brings me an absolutely unparalleled amount of pride and joy to know that our daughter is growing up with a father who will stick by her side no matter who she is, who will show her how she should expect to be treated by modeling it for her. Evelyn did not have that. I did not have that. But she will. Because of you. And lastly, to my baby girl. You were teeny teeny tiny—I believe the size of half the period on the end of this sentence—when I started writing this book. And when I finished it, you were mere days away from making your entrance. You were with me every step of the way. I suspect it was, in no small part, you who gave me the strength to write it. I promise that I will repay the favor by loving you unconditionally and accepting you always, so that you feel strong enough and safe enough to do anything you set your mind to. Evelyn would want that for you. She would say, “Lilah, go out there, be kind, and grab what you want out of this world with both hands.” Well, she might not have put as big an emphasis on being kind. But as your mother, I must insist.

The savage rushing of the river seemed to be inside her head, inside her body. Even when the oarswomen, their guides, were speaking to her, she had the impression she couldn't quite hear them because of the roar. Not of the river that did indeed roar, just behind them, close to the simple shelter they'd made for her, but because of an internal roar as of the sound of a massive accumulation of words, spoken all at once, but collected over a lifetime, now trying to leave her body. As they rose to her lips, and in response to the question: Do you want to go home? she leaned over a patch of yellow grass near her elbow and threw up. All the words from decades of her life filled her throat. Words she had said or had imagined saying or had swallowed before saying to her father, dead these many years. All the words to her mother. To her husbands. Children. Lovers. The words shouted back at the television set, spreading its virus of mental confusion. Once begun, the retching went on and on. She would stop, gasping for breath, rest a minute, and be off again. Draining her body of precious fluid... Soon, exhausted, she was done. No, she had said weakly, I don't want to go home. I'll be all right now.

The wife correct ” Lorelei prompted. “She makes sure her husband is treated with the proper regard and she is the one who sees after his care just like you would do a treasured pup.” Annabeth frowned. “I suppose that’s true.” “Thank you ” Lorelei said. “Now if you wish to train a man to listen to you you never shout you whisper. They take extra special care to listen to a quiet tone while they automatically shut out loud ones. And just like you would a dog when he comes at your bidding you reward him. That way he’ll always come instead of ignoring you or putting you off.

Across from me at the kitchen table, my mother smiles over red wine that she drinks out of a measuring glass. She says she doesn’t deprive herself, but I’ve learned to find nuance in every movement of her fork. In every crinkle in her brow as she offers me the uneaten pieces on her plate. I’ve realized she only eats dinner when I suggest it. I wonder what she does when I’m not there to do so. Maybe this is why my house feels bigger each time I return; it’s proportional. As she shrinks the space around her seems increasingly vast. She wanes while my father waxes. His stomach has grown round with wine, late nights, oysters, poetry. A new girlfriend who was overweight as a teenager, but my dad reports that now she’s “crazy about fruit." It was the same with his parents; as my grandmother became frail and angular her husband swelled to red round cheeks, rotund stomach and I wonder if my lineage is one of women shrinking making space for the entrance of men into their lives not knowing how to fill it back up once they leave. I have been taught accommodation. My brother never thinks before he speaks. I have been taught to filter. “How can anyone have a relationship to food?" He asks, laughing, as I eat the black bean soup I chose for its lack of carbs. I want to tell say: we come from difference, Jonas, you have been taught to grow out I have been taught to grow in you learned from our father how to emit, how to produce, to roll each thought off your tongue with confidence, you used to lose your voice every other week from shouting so much I learned to absorb I took lessons from our mother in creating space around myself I learned to read the knots in her forehead while the guys went out for oysters and I never meant to replicate her, but spend enough time sitting across from someone and you pick up their habits that’s why women in my family have been shrinking for decades. We all learned it from each other, the way each generation taught the next how to knit weaving silence in between the threads which I can still feel as I walk through this ever-growing house, skin itching, picking up all the habits my mother has unwittingly dropped like bits of crumpled paper from her pocket on her countless trips from bedroom to kitchen to bedroom again, Nights I hear her creep down to eat plain yogurt in the dark, a fugitive stealing calories to which she does not feel entitled. Deciding how many bites is too many How much space she deserves to occupy. Watching the struggle I either mimic or hate her, And I don’t want to do either anymore but the burden of this house has followed me across the country I asked five questions in genetics class today and all of them started with the word “sorry". I don’t know the requirements for the sociology major because I spent the entire meeting deciding whether or not I could have another piece of pizza a circular obsession I never wanted but inheritance is accidental still staring at me with wine-stained lips from across the kitchen table.

Now what I want to know is what happened when you found Bryony, Leo,” said Will. “Did you just say your sister sent me, pack up everything and come with me this moment?” “More or less.” “And she came away with you?” “More or less.” Leo tossed Bryony a mischievous look. “Although there might have been laudanum, drugging, and a midnight abduction involved.” “Now that’s a much better story,” said Matthew. “I would pay to read that one.” “And for his knavery, Leo lost one of his—more important parts,” said Bryony. “No!” Matthew and Will shouted in unison. “Bryony!” Callista squeaked. “Kidney,” Leo cried. “It was just a kidney. A man can live a perfectly vigorous life with one kidney.” “You can call it a kidney if you want,” said Bryony.

The reasaon I'm shy of objects is because I like them. I transfer the thoughts that are against me onto them. Then these thoughts go away, unless I talk about them - just like my wariness of people. Maybe it all collects in your hair. After I separated from my husband, in the quiet days when no one was shouting at me anymore, I started noticing other people's wariness of strangers. I saw how they combed their hair in public. In the factory, in the city, in the streets, and trams, buses, and trains, while waiting in front of a counter or standing in a line for milk and bread. People comb their hair at the movies before the light goes out, and even in the cemetery. While they're parting their hair you can see their wariness of others collecting in their combs. But they can't comb it out completely if they go on talking about it. The fear of strangers sticks to the comb and makes it greasy. People who talk about it can't get rid of their fear of strangers; their combs are always clean.

The love of my life is gone, and I can’t just call her and say I’m sorry and have her come back. She’s gone forever. So yes, Monique, that is something I do regret. I regret every second I didn’t spend with her. I regret every stupid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should have begged her to stay. I should have apologized and sent roses and stood on top of the Hollywood sign and shouted, ‘I’m in love with Celia St. James!’ and let them crucify me for it. That’s what I should have done. And now that I don’t have her, and I have more money than I could ever use in this lifetime, and my name is cemented in Hollywood history, and I know how hollow it is, I am kicking myself for every single second I chose it over loving her proudly. But that’s a luxury. You can do that when you’re rich and famous. You can decide that wealth and renown are worthless when you have them. Back then, I still thought I had all the time I needed to do everything I wanted. That if I just played my cards right, I could have it all.

Evelyn looks at me as if I am stupid. “She’s gone now,” Evelyn says. “The love of my life is gone, and I can’t just call her and say I’m sorry and have her come back. She’s gone forever. So yes, Monique, that is something I do regret. I regret every second I didn’t spend with her. I regret every stupid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should have begged her to stay. I should have apologized and sent roses and stood on top of the Hollywood sign and shouted, ‘I’m in love with Celia St. James!’ and let them crucify me for it. That’s what I should have done. And now that I don’t have her, and I have more money than I could ever use in this lifetime, and my name is cemented in Hollywood history, and I know how hollow it is, I am kicking myself for every single second I chose it over loving her proudly. But that’s a luxury. You can do that when you’re rich and famous. You can decide that wealth and renown are worthless when you have them. Back then, I still thought I had all the time I needed to do everything I wanted. That if I just played my cards right, I could have it all.

I’m supposed to believe you sold your emeralds out of some freakish start-out of a frivolous desire to go off with a man you claim was your brother?” “Goodness, I don’t know what you are supposed to believe. I only know I did it.” “Madam!” he snapped. “You were on the verge of tears, according to the jeweler to whom you sold them. If you were in a frivolous mood, why were you on the verge of tears?” Elizabeth gave him a vacuous look. “I liked my emeralds.” Guffaws erupted from the floor to the rafters. Elizabeth waited until they were finished before she leaned forward and said in a proud, confiding tone, “My husband often says that emeralds match my eyes. Isn’t that sweet?” Sutherland was beginning to grind his teeth, Elizabeth noted. Afraid to look at Ian, she cast a quick glance at Peterson Delham and saw him watching her alertly with something that might well have been admiration. “So!” Sutherland boomed in a voice that was nearly a rant. “We are now supposed to believe that you weren’t really afraid of your husband?” “Of course I was. Didn’t I just explain how very cruel he can be?” she asked with another vacuous look. “Naturally, when Bobby showed me his back I couldn’t help thinking that a man who would threaten to cut off his wife’s allowance would be capable of anything-“ Loud guffaws lasted much longer this time, and even after they died down, Elizabeth noticed derisive grins where before there had been condemnation and disbelief. “And,” Sutherland boomed, when he could be heard again, “we are also supposed to believe that you ran off with a man you claim is your brother and have been cozily in England somewhere-“ Elizabeth nodded emphatically and helpfully provided, “In Helmshead-it is the sweetest village by the sea. I was having a very pleas-very practical time until I read the paper and realized my husband was on trial. Bobby didn’t think I should come back at all, because he was still provoked about being put on one of my husband’s ships. But I thought I ought.” “And what,” Sutherland gritted, “do you claim is the reason you decided you ought?” “I didn’t think Lord Thornton would like being hanged-“ More mirth exploded through the House, and Elizabeth had to wait for a full minute before she could continue. “And so I gave Bobby my money, and he went on to have his own agreeable life, as I said earlier.” “Lady Thornton,” Sutherland said in an awful, silky voice that made Elizabeth shake inside, “does the word ‘perjury’ have any meaning to you?” “I believe,” Elizabeth said, “it means to tell a lie in a place like this.” “Do you know how the Crown punishes perjurers? They are sentenced to gaol, and they live their lives in a dark, dank cell. Would you want that to happen to you?” “It certainly doesn’t sound very agreeable,” Elizabeth said. “Would I be able to take my jewels and gowns?” Shouts of laughter shook the chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceilings. “No, you would not!” “Then I’m certainly happy I haven’t lied.

Onions! Fresh, hot, sweet onions,” Sam called as Mary Lou pulled the cart down Main Street. “Eight cents a dozen.” It was a beautiful spring morning. The sky was painted pale blue and pink—the same color as the lake and the peach trees along its shore. Mrs. Gladys Tennyson was wearing just her nightgown and robe as she came running down the street after Sam. Mrs. Tennyson was normally a very proper woman who never went out in public without dressing up in fine clothes and a hat. So it was quite surprising to the people of Green Lake to see her running past them. “Sam!” she shouted. “Whoa, Mary Lou,” said Sam, stopping his mule and cart. “G’morning, Mrs. Tennyson,” he said. “How’s little Becca doing?” Gladys Tennyson was all smiles. “I think she’s going to be all right. The fever broke about an hour ago. Thanks to you.” “I’m sure the good Lord and Doc Hawthorn deserve most of the credit.” “The Good Lord, yes,” agreed Mrs. Tennyson, “but not Dr. Hawthorn. That quack wanted to put leeches on her stomach! Leeches! My word! He said they would suck out the bad blood. Now you tell me. How would a leech know good blood from bad blood?” “I wouldn’t know,” said Sam. “It was your onion tonic,” said Mrs. Tennyson. “That’s what saved her.” Other townspeople made their way to the cart. “Good morning, Gladys,” said Hattie Parker. “Don’t you look lovely this morning.” Several people snickered. “Good morning, Hattie,” Mrs. Tennyson replied. “Does your husband know you’re parading about in your bed clothes?” Hattie asked. There were more snickers. “My husband knows exactly where I am and how I am dressed, thank you,” said Mrs. Tennyson. “We have both been up all night and half the morning with Rebecca. She almost died from stomach sickness. It seems she ate some bad meat.” Hattie’s face flushed. Her husband, Jim Parker, was the butcher. “It made my husband and me sick as well,” said Mrs. Tennyson, “but it nearly killed Becca, what with her being so young. Sam saved her life.” “It wasn’t me,” said Sam. “It was the onions.” “I’m glad Becca’s all right,” Hattie said contritely. “I keep telling Jim he needs to wash his knives,” said Mr. Pike, who owned the general store. Hattie Parker excused herself, then turned and quickly walked away. “Tell Becca that when she feels up to it to come by the store for a piece of candy,” said Mr. Pike. “Thank you, I’ll do that.” Before returning home, Mrs. Tennyson bought a dozen onions from Sam. She gave him a dime and told him to keep the change. “I don’t take charity,” Sam told her. “But if you want to buy a few extra onions for Mary Lou, I’m sure she’d appreciate it.” “All right then,” said Mrs. Tennyson, “give me my change in onions.” Sam gave Mrs. Tennyson an additional three onions, and she fed them one at a time to Mary Lou. She laughed as the old donkey ate them out of her hand.

What d’you reckon happened to the Cattermoles?” “With any luck, they’ll have got away,” said Hermione, clutching her hot mug for comfort. “As long as Mr. Cattermole had his wits about him, he’ll have transported Mrs. Cattermole by Side-Along-Apparition and they’ll be fleeing the country right now with their children. That’s what Harry told her to do.” “Blimey, I hope they escaped,” said Ron, leaning back on his pillows. The tea seemed to be doing him good; a little of his color had returned. “I didn’t get the feeling Reg Cattermole was all that quick-witted, though, the way everyone was talking to me when I was him. God, I hope they made it…If they both end up in Azkaban because of us…” Harry looked over at Hermione and the question he had been about to ask--about whether Mrs. Cattermole’s lack of a wand would prevent her Apparating alongside her husband--died in his throat. Hermione was watching Ron fret over the fate of the Cattermoles, and there was such tenderness in her expression that Harry felt almost as if he had surprised her in the act of kissing him. “So, have you got it?” Harry asked her, partly to remind her that he was there. “Got--got what?” she said with a little start. “What did we just go through all that for? The locket! Where’s the locket?” “You got it?” shouted Ron, raising himself a little higher on his pillows. “No one tells me anything! Blimey, you could have mentioned it!” “Well, we were running for our lives from the Death Eaters, weren’t we?” said Hermione.

She sat and watched the dockhand when it was sunny and she sat and watched him when it rained. Or when it was foggy, which is what it was nearly every morning at eight o’clock. This morning was none of the above. This morning was cold. The pier smelled of fresh water and of fish. The seagulls screeched overhead, a man’s voice shouted. Where is my brother to help me, my sister, my mother? Pasha, help me, hide in the woods where I know I can find you. Dasha, look what’s happened. Do you even see? Mama, Mama. I want my mother. Where is my family to ask things of me, to weigh on me, to intrude on me, to never let me be silent or alone, where are they to help me through this? Deda, what do I do? I don’t know what to do. This morning the dockhand did not go over to see his friend at the next pier for a smoke and a coffee. Instead, he walked across the road and sat next to her on the bench. This surprised her. But she said nothing, she just wrapped her white nurse’s coat tighter around herself, and fixed the kerchief covering her hair. In Swedish he said to her, “My name is Sven. What’s your name?” After a longish pause, she replied. “Tatiana. I don’t speak Swedish.” In English he said to her, “Do you want a cigarette?” “No,” she replied, also in English. She thought of telling him she spoke little English. She was sure he didn’t speak Russian. He asked her if he could get her a coffee, or something warm to throw over her shoulders. No and no. She did not look at him. Sven was silent a moment. “You want to get on my barge, don’t you?” he asked. “Come. I will take you.” He took her by her arm. Tatiana didn’t move. “I can see you have left something behind,” he said, pulling on her gently. “Go and retrieve it.” Tatiana did not move. “Take my cigarette, take my coffee, or get on my barge. I won’t even turn away. You don’t have to sneak past me. I would have let you on the first time you came. All you had to do was ask. You want to go to Helsinki? Fine. I know you’re not Finnish.” Sven paused. “But you are very pregnant. Two months ago it would have been easier for you. But you need to go back or go forward. How long do you plan to sit here and watch my back?” Tatiana stared into the Baltic Sea. “If I knew, would I be sitting here?” “Don’t sit here anymore. Come,” said the longshoreman. She shook her head. “Where is your husband? Where is the father of your baby?” “Dead in the Soviet Union,” Tatiana breathed out. “Ah, you’re from the Soviet Union.” He nodded. “You’ve escaped somehow? Well, you’re here, so stay. Stay in Sweden. Go to the consulate, get yourself refugee protection. We have hundreds of people getting through from Denmark. Go to the consulate.” Tatiana shook her head. “You’re going to have that baby soon,” Sven said. “Go back, or move forward.” Tatiana’s hands went around her belly. Her eyes glazed over. The dockhand patted her gently and stood up. “What will it be? You want to go back to the Soviet Union? Why?” Tatiana did not reply. How to tell him her soul had been left there? “If you go back, what happens to you?” “I die most likely,” she barely whispered. “If you go forward, what happens to you?” “I live most likely.” He clapped his hands. “What kind of a choice is that? You must go forward.” “Yes,” said Tatiana, “but how do I live like this? Look at me. You think, if I could, I wouldn’t?” “So you’re here in the Stockholm purgatory, watching me move my paper day in and day out, watching me smoke, watching me. What are you going to do? Sit with your baby on the bench? Is that what you want?” Tatiana was silent. The first time she laid eyes on him she was sitting on a bench, eating ice cream. “Go forward.” “I don’t have it in me.” He nodded. “You have it. It’s just covered up. For you it’s winter.” He smiled. “Don’t worry. Summer’s here. The ice will melt.” Tatiana struggled up from the bench. Walking away, she said in Russian, “It’s not the ice anymore, my seagoing philosopher. It’s the pyre.

O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you, I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,) I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems, Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems, Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears, Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids, Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges, Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition, Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue, Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest, Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones, Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails, Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side, Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone, Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root, Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above, Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg, Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel; All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female, The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean, The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame, Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity, Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman, The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings, The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud, Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming, Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening, The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes, The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair, The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body, The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out, The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees, The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones, The exquisite realization of health; O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, O I say now these are the soul!

Does it undermine my image as a warrior to be with you?' 'No. Does it undermine Feyre's when she's seen with Rhys?' Her stomach tightened. Her heartbeat pulsed in her arms, her gut. 'It's different for them,' she made herself say as they reached the end of the bridge and turned to walk along the quay flanking the river. Cassian asked carefully. 'Why?' Nesta kept her focus on the glittering river, vibrant with the hues of sunset. 'Because they're mates.' At his utter silence, she knew what he'd say. Halted again, bracing herself for it. Cassian's face was a void. Completely empty as he said, 'And we're not?' Nesta said nothing. He huffed a laugh. 'Because they're mates and you don't want us to be.' 'That word means nothing to me, Cassian,' she said, voice thick as she tried to keep the people who strode past from overhearing. 'It means something to all of you, but for most of my life, husband and wife was as good as it got. Mate is just a word.' 'That's bullshit.' When she only began walking along the river again, he asked. 'Why are you frightened?' 'I'm not frightened.' 'What spooked you? Just being seen publicly with me like this?' Yes. Having him kiss her and realising that soon she'd have to return to the world humming around them, and leave the House, and she didn't know what she would do then. What it would mean for them. If she would plunge back into that dark place she'd occupied before. Drag him down with her. 'Nesta. Talk to me.' She met his stare, but wouldn't open her mouth. Cassian's eyes blazed. 'Say it.' She refused. 'Say it, Nesta.' 'I don't know what you're talking about.' 'Ask me why I vanished for nearly a week after Solstice. Why I suddenly had to do an inspection right after a holiday.' Nesta kept her mouth shut. 'It was because I woke up the next morning and all I wanted to do was fuck you for a week straight. And I knew what that meant, what had happened, even though you didn't, and I didn't want to scare you. You weren't ready for the truth- not yet.' Her mouth went dry. 'Say it,' Cassian snarled. People gave them a wide berth. Some outright turned back toward the direction they'd come from. 'No.' His face shuttered with rage even as his voice became calm. 'Say it.' She couldn't. Not before he'd ordered her to, and certainly not now. She couldn't let him win like that. 'Say what I guessed from the moment we met,' he breathed. 'What I knew the first time I kissed you. What became unbreakable between us on Solstice night.' She wouldn't. 'I am your mate, for fuck's sake!' Cassian shouted, loud enough for people across the river to hear. 'You are my mate! Why are you still fighting it?' She let the truth, voiced at last, wash over her. 'You promised me forever on Solstice,' he said, voice breaking. 'Why is one word somehow throwing you off that?' 'Because with that one word, the last scrap of my humanity goes away!' She didn't care who saw them, who heard. 'With that one stupid word, I am no longer human in any way. I'm one of you!' He blinked. 'I thought you wanted to be one of us.' 'I don't know what I want. I didn't have a choice.' 'Well, I didn't have a choice in being shackled to you, either.' The declaration slammed into her. Shackled. He sucked in a breath. 'That was an incredibly poor choice of words.' 'But the truth, right?' 'No, I was angry- it's not true.' 'Why? Your friends saw me for what I was. What I am. The mating bond made you stupidly blind to it. How many times did they warn you away from me, Cassian?' She barked a cold laugh. Shackled. Words beckoned, sharp as knives, begging for her to grab one and plunge it into his chest. Make him hurt as much as that one would hurt her. Make him bleed. But if she did that, if she ripped into him... She couldn't. Wouldn't let herself do it.

Elizabeth snapped awake in a terrified instant as the door to her bed chamber was flung open near dawn, and Ian stalked into the darkened room. “Do you want to go first, or shall I?” he said tightly, coming to stand at the side of her bed. “What do you mean?” she asked in a trembling voice. “I mean,” he said, “that either you go first and tell me why in hell you suddenly find my company repugnant, or I’ll go first and tell you how I feel when I don’t know where you are or why you want to be there!” “I’ve sent word to you both nights.” “You sent a damned note that arrived long after nightfall both times, informing me that you intended to sleep somewhere else. I want to know why!” He has men beaten like animals, she reminded herself. “Stop shouting at me,” Elizabeth said shakily, getting out of bed and dragging the covers with her to hide herself from him. His brows snapped together in an ominous frown. “Elizabeth?” he asked, reaching for her. “Don’t touch me!” she cried. Bentner’s voice came from the doorway. “Is aught amiss, my lady?” he asked, glaring bravely at Ian. “Get out of here and close that damned door behind you!” Ian snapped furiously. “Leave it open,” Elizabeth said nervously, and the brave butler did exactly as she said. In six long strides Ian was at the door, shoving it closed with a force that sent it crashing into its frame, and Elizabeth began to vibrate with terror. When he turned around and started toward her Elizabeth tried to back away, but she tripped on the coverlet and had to stay where she was. Ian saw the fear in her eyes and stopped short only inches in front of her. His hand lifted, and she winced, but it came to rest on her cheek. “Darling, what is it?” he asked. It was his voice that made her want to weep at his feet, that beautiful baritone voice; and his face-that harsh, handsome face she’d adored. She wanted to beg him to tell her what Robert and Wordsworth had said were lies-all lies. “My life depends on this, Elizabeth. So does yours. Don’t fail us,” Robert had pleaded. Yet, in that moment of weakness she actually considered telling Ian everything she knew and letting him kill her if he wanted to; she would have preferred death to the torment of living with the memory of the lie that had been their lives-to the torment of living without him. “Are you ill?” he asked, frowning and minutely studying her face. Snatching at the excuse he’d offered, she nodded hastily. “Yes. I haven’t been feeling well.” “Is that why you went to London? To see a physician?” She nodded a little wildly, and to her bewildered horror he started to smile-that lazy, tender smile that always made her senses leap. “Are you with child, darling? Is that why you’re acting so strangely?” Elizabeth was silent, trying to debate the wisdom of saying yes or no-she should say no, she realized. He’d hunt her to the ends of the earth if he believed she was carrying his babe. “No! He-the doctor said it is just-just-nerves.” “You’ve been working and playing too hard,” Ian said, looking like the picture of a worried, devoted husband. “You need more rest.” Elizabeth couldn’t bear any more of this-not his feigned tenderness or his concern or the memory of Robert’s battered back. “I’m going to sleep now,” she said in a strangled voice. “Alone,” she added, and his face whitened as if she had slapped him. During his entire adult life Ian had relied almost as much on his intuition as on his intellect, and at that moment he didn’t want to believe in the explanation they were both offering. His wife did not want him in her bed; she recoiled from his touch; she had been away for two consecutive nights; and-more alarming than any of that-guilt and fear were written all over her pale face. “Do you know what a man thinks,” he said in a calm voice that belied the pain streaking through him, “when his wife stays away at night and doesn’t want him in her bed when she does return?

I now pronounce you husband and wife. I hadn’t considered the kiss. Not once. I suppose I’d assumed it would be the way a wedding kiss should be. Restrained. Appropriate. Mild. A nice peck. Save the real kisses for later, when you’re deliciously alone. Country club girls don’t make out in front of others. Like gum chewing, it should always be done in private, where no one else can see. But Marlboro Man wasn’t a country club boy. He’d missed the memo outlining the rules and regulations of proper ways to kiss in public. I found this out when the kiss began--when he wrapped his loving, protective arms around me and kissed me like he meant it right there in my Episcopal church. Right there in front of my family, and his, in front of Father Johnson and Ms. Altar Guild and our wedding party and the entire congregation, half of whom were meeting me for the first time that night. But Marlboro Man didn’t seem to care. He kissed me exactly the way he’d kissed me the night of our first date--the night my high-heeled boot had gotten wedged in a crack in my parents’ sidewalk and had caused me to stumble. The night he’d caught me with his lips. We were making out in church--there was no way around it. And I felt every bit as swept away as I had that first night. The kiss lasted hours, days, weeks…probably ten to twelve seconds in real time, which, in a wedding ceremony setting, is a pretty long kiss. And it might have been longer had the passionate moment not been interrupted by the sudden sound of a person clapping his hands. “Woohoo! All right!” the person shouted. “Yes!” It was Mike. The congregation broke out in laughter as Marlboro Man and I touched our foreheads together, cementing the moment forever in our memory. We were one; this was tangible to me now. It wasn’t just an empty word, a theological concept, wishful thinking. It was an official, you-and-me-against-the-world designation. We’d both left our separateness behind. From that moment forward, nothing either of us did or said or planned would be in a vacuum apart from the other. No holiday would involve our celebrating separately at our respective family homes. No last-minute trips to Mexico with friends, not that either of us was prone to last-minute trips to Mexico with friends. But still. The kiss had sealed the deal in so many ways. I walked proudly out of the church, the new wife of Marlboro Man. When we exited the same doors through which my dad and I had walked thirty minutes earlier, Marlboro Man’s arm wriggled loose from my grasp and instinctively wrapped around my waist, where it belonged. The other arm followed, and before I knew it we were locked in a sweet, solidifying embrace, relishing the instant of solitude before our wedding party--sisters, cousins, brothers, friends--followed closely behind. We were married. I drew a deep, life-giving breath and exhaled. The sweating had finally stopped. And the robust air-conditioning of the church had almost completely dried my lily-white Vera.

longer; it cannot deceive them too much." Madame Defarge looked superciliously at the client, and nodded in confirmation. "As to you," said she, "you would shout and shed tears for anything, if it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you not?" "Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment." "If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to pluck them to pieces and despoil them for your own advantage, you would pick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would you not?" "Truly yes, madame." "Yes. And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to fly, and were set upon them to strip them of their feathers for your own advantage, you would set upon the birds of the finest feathers; would you not?" "It is true, madame." "You have seen both dolls and birds to-day," said Madame Defarge, with a wave of her hand towards the place where they had last been apparent; "now, go home!" XVI. Still Knitting Madame Defarge and monsieur her husband returned amicably to the bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap toiled through the darkness, and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue by the wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the compass where the chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, listened to the whispering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone faces, now, for listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few village scarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments of dead stick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone courtyard and terrace staircase, had it borne in upon their starved fancy that the expression of the faces was altered. A rumour just lived in the village—had a faint and bare existence there, as its people had—that when the knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces of pride to faces of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauled up forty feet above the fountain, they changed again, and bore a cruel look of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear for ever. In the stone face over the great window of the bed-chamber where the murder was done, two fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which everybody recognised, and which nobody had seen of old; and on the scarce occasions when two or three ragged peasants emerged from the crowd to take a hurried peep at Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a skinny finger would not have pointed to it for a minute, before they all started away among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares who could find a living there. Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well—thousands of acres of land—a whole province of France—all France itself—lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible

We walk around inside that house like everything is okay, but it’s not, Quinn. We’ve been broken for years and I have no idea how to fix us. I find solutions. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at. But I have no idea how to solve me and you. Every day I come home, hoping things will be better. But you can’t even stand to be in the same room with me. You hate it when I touch you. You hate it when I talk to you. I pretend not to notice the things you don’t want me to notice because I don’t want you to hurt more than you already do.” He releases a rush of air. “I am not blaming you for what I did. It’s my fault. I did that. I fucked up. But I didn’t fuck up because I was attracted to her. I fucked up because I miss you. Every day, I miss you. When I’m at work, I miss you. When I’m home, I miss you. When you’re next to me in bed, I miss you. When I’m inside you, I miss you.” Graham presses his mouth to mine. I can taste his tears. Or maybe they’re my tears. He pulls back and presses his forehead to mine. “I miss you, Quinn. So much. You’re right here, but you aren’t. I don’t know where you went or when you left, but I have no idea how to bring you back. I am so alone. We live together. We eat together. We sleep together. But I have never felt more alone in my entire life.” Graham releases me and falls back against his seat. He rests his elbow against the window, covering his face as he tries to compose himself. He’s more broken than I’ve ever seen him in all the years I’ve known him. And I’m the one slowly tearing him down. I’m making him unrecognizable. I’ve strung him along by allowing him to believe there’s hope that I’ll eventually change. That I’ll miraculously turn back into the woman he fell in love with. But I can’t change. We are who our circumstances turn us into. “Graham.” I wipe at my face with my shirt. He’s quiet, but he eventually looks at me with his sad, heartbroken eyes. “I haven’t gone anywhere. I’ve been here this whole time. But you can’t see me because you’re still searching for someone I used to be. I’m sorry I’m no longer who I was back then. Maybe I’ll get better. Maybe I won’t. But a good husband loves his wife through the good and the bad times. A good husband stands at his wife’s side through sickness and health, Graham. A good husband- a husband who truly loves his wife - wouldn’t cheat on her and then blame his infidelity on the fact that he’s lonely.” Graham’s expression doesn’t change. He’s as still as a statue. The only thing that moves is his jaw as he works it back and forth. And then his eyes narrow and he tilts his head. “You don’t think I love you, Quinn?” “I know you used to. But I don’t think you love the person I’ve become.” Graham sits up straight. He leans forward, looking me hard in the eye. His words are clipped as he speaks. “I have loved you every single second of every day since the moment I laid eyes on you. I love you more now than I did the day I married you. I love you, Quinn. I fucking love you!” He opens his car door, gets out and then slams it shut with all his strength. The whole car shakes. He walks toward the house, but before he makes it to the front door, he spins around and points at me angrily. “I love you, Quinn!” He’s shouting the words. He’s angry. So angry. He walks toward his car and kicks at the front bumper with his bare foot. He kicks and he kicks and he kicks and then pauses to scream it at me again. “I love you!” He slams his fist against the top of his car, over and over, until he finally collapses against the hood, his head buried in his arms. He remains in this position for an entire minute, the only thing moving is the subtle shaking of his shoulders. I don’t move. I don’t even think I breathe. Graham finally pushes off the hood and uses his shirt to wipe at his eyes. He looks at me, completely defeated. “I love you,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “I always have. No matter how much you wish I didn’t.

HOW DO THEY RECEIVE ME? They call me “little girl,” “dear daughter,” “dear child.” Probably if I was of their generation they would behave differently with me. Calmly and as equals. Without joy and amazement, which are the gifts of the meeting between youth and age. It is a very important point, that then they were young and now, as they remember, they are old. They remember across their life—across forty years. They open their world to me cautiously, to spare me: “I got married right after the war. I hid behind my husband. Behind the humdrum, behind baby diapers. I wanted to hide. My mother also begged: ‘Be quiet! Be quiet! Don’t tell.’ I fulfilled my duty to the Motherland, but it makes me sad that I was there. That I know about it…And you are very young. I feel sorry for you…” I often see how they sit and listen to themselves. To the sound of their own soul. They check it against the words. After long years a person understands that this was life, but now it’s time to resign yourself and get ready to go. You don’t want to, and it’s too bad to vanish just like that. Casually. In passing. And when you look back you feel a wish not only to tell about your life, but also to fathom the mystery of life itself. To answer your own question: Why did all this happen to me? You gaze at everything with a parting and slightly sorrowful look…Almost from the other side…No longer any need to deceive anyone or yourself. It’s already clear to you that without the thought of death it is impossible to make out anything in a human being. Its mystery hangs over everything. War is an all too intimate experience. And as boundless as human life… Once a woman (a pilot) refused to meet with me. She explained on the phone: “I can’t…I don’t want to remember. I spent three years at war…And for three years I didn’t feel myself a woman. My organism was dead. I had no periods, almost no woman’s desires. And I was beautiful…When my future husband proposed to me…that was already in Berlin, by the Reichstag…He said: ‘The war’s over. We’re still alive. We’re lucky. Let’s get married.’ I wanted to cry. To shout. To hit him! What do you mean, married? Now? In the midst of all this—married? In the midst of black soot and black bricks…Look at me…Look how I am! Begin by making me a woman: give me flowers, court me, say beautiful words. I want it so much! I wait for it! I almost hit him…I was about to…He had one cheek burned, purple, and I see: he understood everything, tears are running down that cheek. On the still-fresh scars…And I myself can’t believe I’m saying to him: ‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’ “Forgive me…I can’t…” I understood her.

Why did you cry off?” She stiffened in surprise; then, trying to match his light, mocking tone, she said, “Viscount Mondevale proved to be a trifle high in the instep about things like his fiancé cavorting about in cottages and greenhouses with you.” She fired and missed. “How many contenders are there this Season?” he asked conversationally as he turned to the target, pausing to wipe the gun. She knew he meant contenders for her hand, and pride absolutely would not allow her to say there were none, nor had there been for a long time. “Well…” she said, suppressing a grimace as she thought of her stout suitor with a houseful of cherubs. Counting on the fact that he didn’t move in the inner circles of the ton, she assumed he wouldn’t know much about either suitor. He raised the gun as she said, “There’s Sir Francis Belhaven, for one.” Instead of firing immediately as he had before, he seemed to require a long moment to adjust his aim. “Belhaven’s an old man,” he said. The gun exploded, and the twig snapped off. When he looked at her his eyes had chilled, almost as if he thought less of her. Elizabeth told herself she was imagining that and determined to maintain their mood of light conviviality. Since it was her turn, she picked up a gun and lifted it. “Who’s the other one?” Relieved that he couldn’t possibly find fault with the age of her reclusive sportsman, she gave him a mildly haughty smile. “Lord John Marchman,” she said, and she fired. Ian’s shout of laughter almost drowned out the report from the gun. “Marchman!” he said when she scowled at him and thrust the butt of the gun in his stomach. “You must be joking!” “You spoiled my shot,” she countered. “Take it again,” he said, looking at her with a mixture of derision, disbelief, and amusement. “No, I can’t shoot with you laughing. And I’ll thank you to wipe that smirk off your face. Lord Marchman is a very nice man.” “He is indeed,” said Ian with an irritating grin. “And it’s a damned good thing you like to shoot, because he sleeps with his guns and fishing poles. You’ll spend the rest of your life slogging through streams and trudging through the woods.” “I happen to like to fish,” she informed him, striving unsuccessfully not to lose her composure. “And Sir Francis may be a trifle older than I, but an elderly husband might be more kind and tolerant than a younger one.” “He’ll have to be tolerant,” Ian said a little shortly, turning his attention back to the guns, “or else a damned good shot.” It angered Elizabeth that he was suddenly attacking her when she had just worked it out in her mind that they were supposed to be dealing with what had happened in a light, sophisticated fashion. “I must say, you aren’t being very mature or very consistent!

-- What a fool I was. "Want To Be a Little Off-Beat?" Here's ten ways, the article said. A lilac door was one. So off I tripped to the nearest hardware store to assert my unique individuality with the same tin of paint as two million other dimwits. Conned into idiocy. My mind is full of trivialities. At lunch Ian said Duncan's piece of cake is miles bigger than mine -- it's not fair, and I roared that they should quit bothering me with trivialities. So when they're at school, do I settle down with the plays of Sophocles? I do not. I think about the color of my front door. That's being unfair to myself. I took that course, Ancient Greek Drama, last winter. Yeh, I took it all right. Young academic generously giving up his Thursday evenings in the cause of adult education. Mrs. MacAindra, I don't think you've got quite the right slant on Clytemnestra. Why not? The king sacrificed their youngest daughter for success in war-- what's the queen supposed to do, shout for joy? That's not quite the point we're discussing, is it? She murdered her husband, Mrs. MacAindra, (Oh God, don't you think I know that? The poor bitch.) Yeh well I guess you must know, Dr. Thorne. Sorry. Oh, that's fine -- I always try to encourage people to express themselves. -- Young twerp. Let somebody try killing one of his daughters. But still, he had his Ph.D. What do I have? Grade Eleven. My own fault....

Rebecca,why haven't you burned his wardrobe yet?" Rebecca turned to see what had provoked that question, then just stared. Her husband was wearing one of those horribly bright satin coats better suited to a costume ball, this one in a ghastly orange, with excesive lace at the wrists and the throat. With his long black hair and his soft cheeks so smoothly shaved,it made him look somewhat effeminate when she knew he was anything but. But he actually looked to be trying not to laugh when he said to his mother, "She'll do nothing of the sort. She likes my taste in clothes. It reminds her of when we first met." Rebecca continued to just stare, her mind in a whirl. It sounded as if he was just teasing, but she couldn't be sure. To imply that she had fond memories of their first meeting wasn't even remotely amusing. She had nothing of the sort. "You can't seriously intend to take your wife out wearing something like that?" Julie continued. "What's wrong with what she's wearing?" "Not her,you fool.You! You're married now. Your old taste in clothes-" "Marriage has nothing to do with taste, Mother," Rupert cut in. "Well, perhaps a little,at least in women, but nothing a'tall to do with one's wardrobe.Shall we go, m'dear?" The last was added for Rebecca as he put an arm around her to lead her out of the room. His hand on her hip was all she could think about. But his mother refused to be dismissed so easily. Julie actually shouted at him, "Find a new tailor! You're mortifying your wife!

In her eyes, he could see the fear, but also the love. The need. Time to show her, that to him, she meant everything. “Before you shower me with kisses for saving you –” “I think it could be argued that I played a part.” “Not when I retell the story you won’t. But we can argue about that later, naked. As I was saying, I have something for you.” Remy pulled the sheet of paper out of his back pocket and unfolded it. Initially he’d worried about it being too short. But as Lucifer assured him when he made the contract and binding, the less clauses he put in, the more his promise would stick out. Handing it to her, he waited. Fidgeted when she didn’t say a word. Almost tore it from her grasp. Then stumbled back as she threw herself at him. I, Remy, the most awesome demon in Hell, do declare to love the witch Ysabel, fiery temper and all, for an eternity. I will never stray. Never betray her trust. Never do anything to cause her pain upon penalty of permanent death. This I do swear in blood, Remy A simple contract, which in its very lack of clauses and sub items, awed her. “You love me that much?” He peered at her with incredulity on his face. “Of course I love you that much. Would I have done all the things I did if I didn’t?” “Well, you are related to a mad woman.” “Yes, and maybe it’s madness for me to love you, but I do. Do you think just any woman would inspire me enough to take on a bloody painful curse. Or put up with the fact you have a giant, demon eating cat. I know you have trust issues, and that I might not have led the kind of life that inspires confidence, but I will show you that you can believe in me. I want you to love me.” “I know you do. And I do love you. Only for you would I come to the rescue wearing nothing to cover my bottom.” His eyebrows shot up. “You came to battle in a skirt without any underwear?” A slow nod was her answer. He grinned, then scowled. “You will not do that again. Do you know how many demons live in the sewer and could have looked up your skirt? I won’t have them looking at what’s mine. On second thought. Throw out all your underwear. I’ll lead the purge on the sewers myself so you can stroll around with your girl parts unencumbered for my enjoyment.” “You’re insane,” she laughed. “Crazy in love with you,” he agreed. “But I do warn you, we’ll have to have dinner with my crazy mother at least once a month.” “Or more often. I quite like your mom. She’s got a refreshing way of viewing the world.” “Oh fuck. Don’t tell me she’s already rubbing off,” he groaned, as he pulled her into his arms. She snuggled against him. This was where she belonged. But she did have a question. “As my new… what should I call you anyway? Boyfriend? Demon I sleep with?” “The following terms are acceptable to me. Yours. Mate. Husband. Divine taster of your –” She slapped a hand over his mouth. “I’ll stick to mate.” “And I’m going with my super, sexy, touch her and die, fabulous cougar, ass kicking witch.” “I dare you shout that five times in a row without stumbling.” He did to her eye popping disbelief. “I told you, I have a very agile tongue.” “I remember.

Lady Thornton,” Sutherland said in an awful, silky voice that made Elizabeth shake inside, “does the word ‘perjury’ have any meaning to you?” “I believe,” Elizabeth said, “it means to tell a lie in a place like this.” “Do you know how the Crown punishes perjurers? They are sentenced to gaol, and they live their lives in a dark, dank cell. Would you want that to happen to you?” “It certainly doesn’t sound very agreeable,” Elizabeth said. “Would I be able to take my jewels and gowns?” Shouts of laughter shook the chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceilings. “No, you would not!” “Then I’m certainly happy I haven’t lied.” Sutherland was no longer certain whether he’d been duped, but he sensed that he’d lost his effort to make Elizabeth sound like a clever, scheming adulteress or a terrified, intimidated wife. The bizarre story of her flight with her brother had now taken on a certain absurd credibility, and he realized it with a sinking heart and a furious glower. “Madam, would you perjure yourself to protect that man?” His arm swung toward Ian, and Elizabeth’s gaze followed helplessly. Her heart froze with terror when she saw that, if anything, Ian looked more bored, more coldly remote and unmoved than he had before. “I asked you,” Sutherland boomed, “if you would perjure yourself to save that man from going to the gallows next month.” Elizabeth would have died to save him. Tearing her gaze from Ian’s terrifying face, she pinned a blank smile on her face. “Next month? What a disagreeable thing to suggest! Why, next month is-is Lady Northam’s ball, and Kensington very specifically promised that we would go”-thunderous guffaws exploded, rocking the rafters, drowning out Elizabeth’s last words-“and that I could have a new fur!!” Elizabeth waited, sensing that she had succeeded, not because her performance had been so convincing, but because many of the lords and wives who never thought beyond the next gown or ball or fur, and so she seemed entirely believable to them. “No further questions!” Sutherland rapped out, casting a contemptuous glance over her. Peterson Delham slowly arose, and though his expression was carefully blank, even bemused, Elizabeth sensed rather than saw that he was silently applauding her. “Lady Thornton,” he said in formal tones, “is there anything else you have to say to this court?” She realized that he wanted her to say something else, and in her state of relieved exhaustion Elizabeth couldn’t think what it was. She said the only thing she could think of, and she knew soon after she began speaking that he was pleased. “Yes, my lord. I wish to say how very sorry I am for the bother Bobby and I have caused everyone. I was wrong to believe him and to dash off without a word to anyone. And it was wrong of him to remain so angry with my husband all this time over what was, after all, rather an act of kindness on his part.” She sensed that she was going too far, sounding too sensible, and she hastily added, “If Kensington had had Bobby tossed into gaol for trying to shoot him, I daresay Bobby would have found it nearly as disagreeable a place as I. He is,” she confided, “a very fastidious person!” “Lady Thornton!” the Lord Chancellor said when the fresh waves of laughter had diminished to ripples. “You may step down.” At the scathing tone in his voice, Elizabeth dared a look in his direction, and then she almost missed her step when she saw the furious scorn on his face. The other lords might think her an incorrigible henwit, but the Lord Chancellor looked as if he would personally have enjoyed throttling her.

Missy and I were married on August 10, 1990. To say our marriage got off to a rocky start would be an understatement. My brothers and closest friends took me frog-hunting the night before my wedding for my bachelor party. As we were searching for frogs, my oldest brother, Alan, gave me a lot of advice on marriage in general as we motored along the bayou. The main thing he reminded me of is that God is the architect of marriage. Having a great relationship with our Creator is the best thing you can do for your marriage relationship. Alan gave me an illustration of a triangle with the husband and wife on the bottom corners and God at the top corner. His point was that as each person moves closer to God, they also move closer to each other. I never forgot that and he was right. I was mainly the motorman that night and was filled with anxiety and anticipation of the wedding. As we moved along, we saw two big frogs mating on the riverbank. “Whoa, there you go!” Al shouted. It kind of broke the ice for a conversation about intimacy and sex. Missy and I had not seen each other much in the previous couple of months because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Many times we had to remind each other of our commitment to stay pure and had had many prayers together. We were not perfect, but one of us would always stop things from getting too heated. Eventually, we decided to have only a long-distance relationship via telephone and our face-to-face encounters became limited to church and public gatherings. As our wedding was approaching, Missy and I were both a little bit nervous about having sex for the first time. I think that’s the way it is when you’re both virgins. We were both excited because we’d decided to save ourselves for marriage and our big night was finally here!

He strode forward, heedless of the murmuring that began among the women when they saw him. Then Sara turned, and her gaze met his. Instantly a guilty blush spread over her cheeks that told him all he needed to know about her intent. “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said in steely tones. “Class is over for today. Why don’t you all go up on deck and get a little fresh air?” When the women looked at Sara, she folded her hands primly in front of her and stared at him. “You have no right to dismiss my class, Captain Horn. Besides, we aren’t finished yet. I was telling them a story—” “I know. You were recounting Lysistrata.” Surprise flickered briefly in her eyes, but then turned smug and looked down her aristocratic little nose at him. “Yes, Lysistrata,” she said in a sweet voice that didn’t fool him for one minute. “Surely you have no objection to my educating the women on the great works of literature, Captain Horn.” “None at all.” He set his hands on his hips. “But I question your choice of material. Don’t you think Aristophanes is a bit beyond the abilities of your pupils?” He took great pleasure in the shock that passed over Sara’s face before she caught herself. Ignoring the rustle of whispers among the women, she stood a little straighter. “As if you know anything at all about Aristophanes.” “I don’t have to be an English lordling to know literature, Sara. I know all the blasted writers you English make so much of. Any one of them would have been a better choice for your charges than Aristophanes.” As she continued to glower at him unconvinced, he scoured his memory, searching through the hundreds of verse passages his English father had literally pounded into him. “You might have chosen Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, for example—‘fie, fie! Unknit that threatening unkind brow. / And dart not scornful glances from those eyes / to wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.’” It had been a long time since he’d recited his father’s favorite passages of Shakespeare, but the words were as fresh as if he’d learned them only yesterday. And if anyone knew how to use literature as a weapon, he did. His father had delighted in tormenting him with quotes about unrepentant children. Sara gaped at him as the other women looked from him to her in confusion. “How . . . I mean . . . when could you possibly—” “Never mind that. The point us, you’re telling them the tale of Lysistrata when what you should be telling them is ‘thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper. /thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee / and for thy maintenance commits his body / to painful labour by both sea and land.’” Her surprise at this knowledge of Shakespeare seemed to vanish as she recognized the passage he was quoting—the scene where Katherine accepts Petruchio as her lord and master before all her father’s guests. Sara’s eyes glittered as she stepped from among the women and came nearer to him. “We are not your wives yet. And Shakespeare also said ‘sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more / men were deceivers ever / one foot on sea and one on shore / to one thing constant never.’” “Ah, yes. Much Ado About Nothing. But even Beatrice changes her tune in the end, doesn’t she? I believe it’s Beatrice who says, ‘contempt, farewell! And maiden pride, adieu! / no glory lives behind the back of such./ and Benedick, love on, I will requite thee, / taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.’” “She was tricked into saying that! She was forced to acknowledge him as surely as you are forcing us!” “Forcing you?” he shouted. “You don’t know the meaning of force! I swear, if you—” He broke off when he realized that the women were staring at him with eyes round and fearful. Sara was twisting his words to make him sound like a monster. And succeeding, too, confound her.

Ah, you don’t comprehend, friend John. Do not think that I am not sad, though I laugh. See, I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, ‘May I come in?’ is not the true laughter. No! he is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person; he choose no time of suitability. He say, ‘I am here.’ Behold, in example I grieve my heart out for that so sweet young girl; I give my blood for her, though I am old and worn; I give my time, my skill, my sleep; I let my other sufferers want that so she may have all. And yet I can laugh at her very grave—laugh when the clay from the spade of the sexton drop upon her coffin and say ‘Thud! thud!’ to my heart, till it send back the blood from my cheek. My heart bleed for that poor boy—that dear boy, so of the age of mine own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with his hair and eyes the same. There, you know now why I love him so. And yet when he say things that touch my husband-heart to the quick, and make my father-heart yearn to him as to no other man—not even to you, friend John, for we are more level in experiences than father and son—yet even at such moment King Laugh he come to me and shout and bellow in my ear, ‘Here I am! here I am!’ till the blood come dance back and bring some of the sunshine that he carry with him to my cheek. Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall—all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. And believe me, friend John, that he is good to come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come; and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again; and we bear to go on with our labour, what it may be.

They heard Hugo ask if the plan for the hors d'oeuvres was still in operation, and they heard Colette ask about plucking the feathers off crows, and they heard Kevin complain that he didn't know whether to hold the birdpaper in his right hand or his left hand, and they heard Mr. Lesko insult Mrs. Morrow, and the bearded man sing a song to the woman with the crow-shaped hat, and they heard a man call for Bruce and a woman call for her mother and dozens of people whisper to and shout at, argue with and agree upon, angrily accuse and meekly defend, furiously compliment and kindly insult dozens of other people, both inside and outside the Hotel Denouement, whose names the Baudelaires recognized, forgot, and had never heard before. Each story had its story, and each story's story was unfathomable in the Baudelaire orphans' short journey, and many of the stories' stories are unfathomable to me, even after all these lonely years and all this lonely research. Perhaps some of these stories are clearer to you, because you have spied upon the people involved. Perhaps Mrs. Bass has changed her name and lives near you, or perhaps Mr. Remora's name is the same, and he lives far away. Perhaps Nero now works as a grocery store clerk, or Geraldine Julienne now teaches arts and crafts. Perhaps Charles and Sir are no longer partners, and you have had the occasion to study one of them as he sat across from you on a bus, or perhaps Hugo, Colette, and Kevin are still comrades, and you have followed these unfathomable people after noticing that one of them used both hands equally. Perhaps Mr. Lesko is now your neighbor, or Mrs. Morrow is now your sister, or your mother, or your aunt or wife or even your husband. Perhaps the noise you hear outside your door is a bearded man trying to climb into your window, or perhaps it is a woman in a crow-shaped hat hailing a taxi. Perhaps you have spotted the managers of the Hotel Denouement, or the judges of the High Court, or the waiters of Cafe Salmonella or the Anxious Clown, or perhaps you have met an expert on injustice or become one yourself. Perhaps the people in your unfathomable life, and their unfathomable stories, are clear to you as you make your way in the world, but when the elevator stopped for the last time, and the doors slid open to reveal the tilted roof of the Hotel Denouement, the Baudelaires felt as if they were balancing very delicately on a mysterious and perplexing heap of unfathomable mysteries.

A few hours later, Jane came out of her boudoir to find her husband in his dressing gown, stretched out across the bed reading the newspaper and idly petting their spaniel Little Archer, a pup from Mrs. Patch’s brood. Seizing the moment, Little Archer leapt off the bed and into her dressing room, where he could chew up slippers to his heart’s content. Dom, however, didn’t even look up as she entered. “They’re calling this the most elegant coronation in history.” He snorted. “I noticed there’s no mention of its being the most interminable.” “Dom,” she purred as she closed the dog into the dressing room for the moment. “All that pomp and circumstance is so tedious.” Still reading, he turned the page of the newspaper. “Ravenswood told me that King William is determined to make sure that parliamentary reform is enacted.” She walked languidly forward. “Dom.” He snapped the paper to straighten it. “It’s about bloody time. I should think--” “Dom!” she practically shouted. “Hmm?” He glanced up, then frowned. “Why are you wearing your coronation robe?” “I was cold,” she said with a teasing smile. She let the robe fall open. “Since I have nothing on underneath.” Dom stared, then gulped. Unsurprisingly, his staff jerked instantly to attention. “If you’re trying to torture me,” he said hoarsely, “you’re doing a good job of it.” She sashayed toward the bed, letting the velvet and ermine robe swing about her. “No torture intended.” She put one knee on the bed. “Dr. Worth said I may resume relations with my husband whenever I am ready.” He blinked, then rose to his knees and seized her about the waist. “May I assume that you’re ready?” he rasped as he brushed a kiss to her cheek. “You have no idea.” She met his mouth with hers. They kissed a long moment, a hot, heavenly kiss that reminded her of how very talented her husband was at this aspect of marriage. She untied his dressing gown and shoved it off his shoulders. He had just finished tearing off his drawers when she shoved him down onto the bed. His eyes lit up as she hovered over him. “Ah, so it’s to be like that, my wicked little seductress?” “Oh, yes.” She grinned at him. “I do so enjoy having a viscount fall before me.” She started to remove her robe, but he stayed her with his hand. “Don’t.” He raked her with a heated glance. “Next session of parliament, I’ll endure the boredom of the endless speeches by imagining you seducing me in all your pomp and circumstance.” “My pomp is nothing to yours, my love,” she murmured as she caught his rampant flesh in her hand. “Yours is quite…er…pompous.” “That’s what happens if the viscount falls.” He thrust against her hand. “His pomp always rises.” And as she laughed, they created a pomp and circumstance all their own.

I can’t remember a specific time when the comments and the name-calling started, but one evening in November it all got much worse,’ she said. ‘My brother Tobias and me were doing our homework at the dining room table like we always did.’ ‘You’ve got a brother?’ She hesitated before nodding. ‘Papa was working late at the clinic in a friend’s back room – it was against the law for Jews to work as doctors. Mama was making supper in the kitchen, and I remember her cursing because she’d just burned her hand on the griddle. Tobias and me couldn’t stop laughing because Mama never swore.’ The memory of it made her mouth twitch in an almost-smile. Then someone banged on our front door. It was late – too late for social calling. Mama told us not to answer it. Everyone knew someone who’d had a knock on the door like that.’ ‘Who was it?’ ‘The police, usually. Sometimes Hitler’s soldiers. It was never for a good reason, and it never ended happily. We all dreaded it happening to us. So, Mama turned the lights out and put her hand over the dog’s nose.’ Esther, glancing sideways at me, explained: ‘We had a sausage dog called Gerta who barked at everything. ‘The knocking went on and they started shouting through the letter box, saying they’d burn the house down if we didn’t answer the door. Mama told us to hide under the table and went to speak to them. They wanted Papa. They said he’d been treating non-Jewish patients at the clinic and it had to stop. Mama told them he wasn’t here but they didn’t believe her and came in anyway. There were four of them in Nazi uniform, stomping through our house in their filthy great boots. Finding us hiding under the table, they decided to take Tobias as a substitute for Papa. ‘When your husband hands himself in, we’ll release the boy,’ was what they said. ‘It was cold outside – a freezing Austrian winter’s night – but they wouldn’t let Tobias fetch his coat. As soon as they laid hands on him, Mama started screaming. She let go of Gerta and grabbed Tobias – we both did – pulling on his arms, yelling that they couldn’t take him, that he’d done nothing wrong. Gerta was barking. I saw one of the men swing his boot at ther. She went flying across the room, hitting the mantelpiece. It was awful. She didn’t bark after that.’ It took a moment for the horror of what she was saying to sink in. ‘Don’t tell me any more if you don’t want to,’ I said gently. She stared straight ahead like she hadn’t heard me. ‘They took my brother anyway. He was ten years old. ‘We ran into the street after them, and it was chaos – like the end of the world or something. The whole town was fully of Nazi uniforms. There were broken windows, burning houses, people sobbing in the gutter. The synagogue at the end of our street was on fire. I was terrified. So terrified I couldn’t move. But Mum kept running. Shouting and yelling and running after my brother. I didn’t see what happened but I heard the gunshot.’ She stopped. Rubbed her face in her hands. ‘Afterwards they gave it a very pretty name: Kristallnacht – meaning “the night of broken glass”. But it was the night I lost my mother and my brother. I was sent away soon after as part of the Kindertransport, though Papa never got used to losing us all at once. Nor did I. That’s why he came to find me. He always promised he’d try.’ Anything I might’ve said stayed stuck in my throat. There weren’t words for it, not really. So I put my arm through Esther’s and we sat, gazing out to sea, two old enemies who were, at last, friends. She was right – it was her story to tell. And I could think of plenty who might benefit from hearing it.

Once a woman (a pilot) refused to meet with me. She explained on the phone: “I can’t… I don’t want to remember. I spent three years at war… And for three years I didn’t feel myself a woman. My organism was dead. I had no periods, almost no woman’s desires. And I was beautiful… When my future husband proposed to me… that was already in Berlin, by the Reichstag… He said: ‘The war’s over. We’re still alive. We’re lucky. Let’s get married.’ I wanted to cry. To shout. To hit him! What do you mean, married? Now? In the midst of all this—married? In the midst of black soot and black bricks… Look at me… Look how I am! Begin by making me a woman: give me flowers, court me, say beautiful words. I want it so much! I wait for it! I almost hit him… I was about to… He had one cheek burned, purple, and I see: he understood everything, tears are running down that cheek. On the still-fresh scars… And I myself can’t believe I’m saying to him: ‘Yes, I’ll marry you.

Amy was mentally packing for a midnight flight to the mail coach to Dover (plan C), when Jane’s gentle voice cut through the listing of ovine pedigrees. "Such a pity about the tapestries," was all she said. Her voice was pitched low but somehow it carried over both the shouting men. Amy glanced sharply at Jane, and was rewarded by a swift kick to the ankle. Had that been a ‘say something now!’ kick, or a ‘be quiet and sit still’ kick? Amy kicked back in inquiry. Jane put her foot down hard over Amy’s. Amy decided that could be interpreted as either ‘be quiet and sit still’ or ‘please stop kicking me now!' Aunt Prudence had snapped out of her reverie with what was nearly an audible click. "Tapestries?" she inquired eagerly. "Why, yes, Mama," Jane replied demurely. "I had hoped that while Amy and I were in France we might be granted access to the tapestries at the Tuilleries." Jane’s quiet words sent the table into a state of electric expectancy. Forks hovered over plates in mid-air; wineglasses tilted halfway to open mouths; little Ned paused in the act of slipping a pea down the back of Agnes’s dress. Even Miss Gwen stopped glaring long enough to eye Jane with what looked more like speculation than rancour. "Not the Gobelins series of Daphne and Apollo!" cried Aunt Prudence. "But, of course, Aunt Prudence," Amy plunged in. Amy just barely restrained herself from turning and flinging her arms around her cousin. Aunt Prudence had spent long hours lamenting that she had never taken the time before the war to copy the pattern of the tapestries that hung in the Tuilleries Palace. "Jane and I had hoped to sketch them for you, hadn’t we, Jane?" "We had," Jane affirmed, her graceful neck dipping in assent. "Yet if Papa feels that France remains unsafe, we shall bow to his greater wisdom." At the other end of the table, Aunt Prudence was wavering. Literally. Torn between her trust in her husband and her burning desire for needlepoint patterns, she swayed a bit in her chair, the feather in her small silk turban quivering with her agitation. "It surely can’t be as unsafe as that, can it, Bertrand?" She leant across the table to peer at her husband through eyes gone nearsighted from long hours over her embroidery frame. "After all, if dear Edouard is willing to take responsibility for the girls…" "Edouard will take very good care of us, I’m sure, Aunt Prudence! If you’ll just read his letter, you’ll see – ouch!" Jane had kicked her again.

I now pronounce you husband and wife. I hadn’t considered the kiss. Not once. I suppose I’d assumed it would be the way a wedding kiss should be. Restrained. Appropriate. Mild. A nice peck. Save the real kisses for later, when you’re deliciously alone. Country club girls don’t make out in front of others. Like gum chewing, it should always be done in private, where no one else can see. But Marlboro Man wasn’t a country club boy. He’d missed the memo outlining the rules and regulations of proper ways to kiss in public. I found this out when the kiss began--when he wrapped his loving, protective arms around me and kissed me like he meant it right there in my Episcopal church. Right there in front of my family, and his, in front of Father Johnson and Ms. Altar Guild and our wedding party and the entire congregation, half of whom were meeting me for the first time that night. But Marlboro Man didn’t seem to care. He kissed me exactly the way he’d kissed me the night of our first date--the night my high-heeled boot had gotten wedged in a crack in my parents’ sidewalk and had caused me to stumble. The night he’d caught me with his lips. We were making out in church--there was no way around it. And I felt every bit as swept away as I had that first night. The kiss lasted hours, days, weeks…probably ten to twelve seconds in real time, which, in a wedding ceremony setting, is a pretty long kiss. And it might have been longer had the passionate moment not been interrupted by the sudden sound of a person clapping his hands. “Woohoo! All right!” the person shouted. “Yes!” It was Mike. The congregation broke out in laughter as Marlboro Man and I touched our foreheads together, cementing the moment forever in our memory. We were one; this was tangible to me now. It wasn’t just an empty word, a theological concept, wishful thinking. It was an official, you-and-me-against-the-world designation. We’d both left our separateness behind. From that moment forward, nothing either of us did or said or planned would be in a vacuum apart from the other. No holiday would involve our celebrating separately at our respective family homes. No last-minute trips to Mexico with friends, not that either of us was prone to last-minute trips to Mexico with friends. But still. The kiss had sealed the deal in so many ways.

While I was in the partisan unit, I received a letter from my husband by some miracle. This was such a joy, so unexpected, because for two years I had heard nothing from him. And then a plane dropped some food, ammunition…And the mail…And in the mail, in this canvas bag, there was a letter—for me. Then I wrote a letter to the Central Committee. I wrote that I would do anything so long as my husband and I were together. We waited for the plane, it was nighttime and pitch-dark. And some sort of plane was circling over us, and then it dumped bombs on us. It was a Messerschmitt. The German had spotted our camp and circled back again. And at the same time our plane, a U-2, arrived and landed just by the fir tree where I was standing. The pilot barely landed and immediately began to take off again, because he saw that the German was circling back and would start shooting again. I took hold of the wing and shouted, “I must go to Moscow, I have permission.” He even swore: “Get in!” And we flew together, just the two of us. I figured out from the postal code where my husband was fighting... They said, “You know, it’s very dangerous where your husband is…” I sat there and wept, so he took pity on me and gave me the pass. “Go out to the highway,” he said. “There’ll be a traffic controller, he’ll tell you how to go.” I arrive at the unit, everybody’s surprised, “Who are you?” they ask. I couldn’t say I was a wife. I tell them—his sister. “Wait,” they tell me, “it’s a four-mile walk to the trenches.” They told him that his sister had arrived. What sister? They say, “The redhead.” His sister had black hair. So he figured out at once what sister. I don’t know how he managed to crawl out of there, but he came soon, and he and I met. What joy… Suddenly I see the superiors coming to the dugout: the major, the colonel. Everybody shakes my hand. Then we sat down and drank, and each of them said something about a wife finding her husband in the trenches. That’s a real wife! The next day my husband was wounded, badly wounded. We ran together, we waded together through some swamp, we crawled together. The machine guns kept rattling, and we kept crawling, and he got wounded in the hip. With an exploding bullet, and try bandaging that—it was in the buttock. It was all torn open, and mud and dirt all over. We were encircled and tried to break out. There was nowhere to take the wounded, and there were no medications. When we did break through, I took my husband to the hospital. I buried him on January 1, and thirty-eight days later I gave birth to a son.

When he saw his wife smashing plates right and left, he shouted, “What! Are you looking for a husband

Surely a young beauty like yourself is lonely, too. It can be a part of the game, if you like.” “Get off,” she said, thoroughly done with this. His answer was to lean in closer. So she kneed him in the groin. As hard as she could. “Aw, ow, dammit!” He doubled over and thudded onto his knees. Jane brushed off her knee, feeling like it had touched something dirty. “Aw, ow, dammit indeed! What’re you thinking?” Jane heard hurried footsteps coming down the stairs. It was Mr. Nobley. “Miss Erstwhile!” He was barefoot in his breeches, his shirt untucked. He glanced down at the groaning man. “Sir Templeton!” “Ow, she kicked me,” said Sir Templeton. “Kneed him, I kneed him,” Jane said. “I don’t kick. Not even when I’m a ninja.” Mr. Nobley stood a moment in silence, looking over the scene. “I hope you remembered to shout ‘Ya’ when taking him down. I hear that is very effective.” “I’m afraid I neglected that bit, but I’ll certainly ‘ya’ from here to London if he ever touches me again.” “Miss Erstwhile, were you perhaps employed by your president’s armed forces in America?” “What? Don’t British women know how to use their knees?” “Happily, I have never put myself in a position to find out.” He stared at the prostrate Sir Templeton. “Did he hurt you?” “Frankly, your arm-yanking earlier was worse.” “I see. Perhaps you should retire to your chambers, Miss Erstwhile. Would you like me to escort you?” “I’m fine,” she said, “as long as there aren’t any other Sir Templetons lurking upstairs.” “Well, I cannot give Colonel Andrews a glowing reference, but I believe the way is safe.” She stepped closer to Mr. Nobley and whispered, “Are you going to out me to Mrs. Wattlesbrook for the servants’ quarters lurking?” “I think,” he said, nudging the prostrate Sir Templeton with his foot, “that you have suffered enough tonight.” Mr. Nobley smiled at her, the first time she had seen his real smile. She wouldn’t go so far as to call it a grin. His lips were closed, but his eyes brightened and the corners of his mouth definitely turned up, creating pleasing little cheek wrinkles on either side as though the smile were in parentheses. It bothered her in a way she couldn’t explain, like feeling itchy but not knowing exactly where to scratch. He was not particularly amused, she saw, but smiled to reassure her. Wait, who wanted to reassure her? Mr. Nobley or the actual man, Actor X? “Thanks. Good night, Mr. Nobley.” “Good night, Miss Erstwhile.” She hesitated, then left, Sir Templeton’s groans following her up the stairs. On the second floor, Aunt Saffronia was emerging from her room, clutching a white shawl over her nightgown. “What was that noise? Is everything all right?” “Yes. It was…your husband. He was being inappropriate.” Aunt Saffronia blinked. “Inebriated?” “Yes.” She nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, Jane.” Jane wasn’t sure if Aunt Saffronia was speaking to Jane the niece or Jane the client. For the first time it didn’t matter; both Janes felt exactly the same. She acknowledged the apology with a nod, went to her room, and locked the door behind her. She thought she was angry but instead she plopped herself down on her bed, put her face in her pillow, and laughed. “What a joke,” she said, sounding to herself like the movie incarnation of Lydia Bennet. “I come for Mr. Darcy, fall for the gardener, and get propositioned by the drunk husband.” Tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow she would play for real. She was going to drive full force into the game, have a staggering good time, and kick the nasty Darcy habit for good. She fell asleep with the ticklish thought of Mr. Nobley’s smile.

What could have possessed her to sleep with Matthew Swift?” “I doubt there was much sleeping involved,” Annabelle replied, her eyes twinkling. Lillian gave her a slitted glare. “If you have the bad taste to be amused by this, Annabelle—” “Daisy was never interested in Lord Llandrindon,” Evie volunteered hastily, trying to prevent a quarrel. “She was only using him to provoke Mr. Swift.” “How do you know?” the other two asked at the same time. “Well, I-I…” Evie made a helpless gesture with her hands. “Last week I m-more or less inadvertently suggested that she try to make him jealous. And it worked.” Lillian’s throat worked violently before she could manage to speak. “Of all the asinine, sheep-headed, moronic—” “Why, Evie?” Annabelle asked in a considerably kinder tone. “Daisy and I overheard Mr. Swift t-talking to Lord Llandrindon. He was trying to convince Llandrindon to court her, and it became obvious that Mr. Swift wanted her for himself.” “I’ll bet he planned it,” Lillian snapped. “He must have known somehow that you would overhear. It was a devious and sinister plot, and you fell for it!” “I don’t think so,” Evie replied. Staring at Lillian’s crimson face, she asked apprehensively, “Are you going to shout at me?” Lillian shook her head and dropped her face in her hands. “I’d shriek like a banshee,” she said through the screen of her fingers, “if I thought it would do any good. But since I’m fairly certain Daisy has been intimate with that reptile, there is probably nothing anyone can do to save her now.” “She may not want to be saved,” Evie pointed out. “That’s because she’s gone stark raving mad,” came Lillian’s muffled growl. Annabelle nodded. “Obviously. Daisy has slept with a handsome, young, wealthy, intelligent man who is apparently in love with her. What in God’s name can she be thinking?” She smiled compassionately as she heard Lillian’s profane reply, and settled a gentle hand between her friend’s shoulders. “Dearest,” she murmured, “as you know, there was a time when it didn’t matter to me whether I married a man I loved or not…it seemed enough just to get my family out of the desperate situation we were in. But when I thought about what it would be like to share a bed with my husband…to spend the rest of my life with him…I knew Simon was the only choice.” She paused, and sudden tears glittered her eyes. Beautiful, self-possessed Annabelle, who hardly ever cried. “When I’m ill,” she continued in a husky voice, “when I’m afraid, when I need something, I know he will move heaven and earth to make everything all right. I trust him with every fiber of my being. And when I see the child we created, the two of us mingled forever in her…my God, how grateful I am that I married Simon. We’ve all been able to choose our own husbands, Lillian. You have to allow Daisy the same freedom.

Boy, I told you to stay away from the Thorpe wagon. If that unreasonable woman wants to do everything herself, then so be it.” Ezra spat out a wad of tobacco from the side of his mouth. Hands fisted at his hips, Davis glared at the wagon master. “This can’t continue. That woman is worn out.” “That woman is stubborn, is what she is.” Ezra’s face took on a red hue. “So what are we going to do, let her kill herself trying to do it all?” Davis leaned in, his jaw clenching.  “She’s the one who decided she could do it all by herself. Let her stew a bit,” Ezra shouted back. “Stewing is one thing, this is inhuman.” “Why are you so all fired up about her? It’s you she’s refused to marry.” “Did you ever think it was too soon after her husband’s death? Maybe she just needs a breather.” “When we’re out here on the trail, there’s no time for breathers. She needs a man to help her with that wagon, and until it sinks in, you stay away from her.

ahead. He urged the horse a little faster and when he was within her hearing, he whistled. The piercing sound cut through the air and Vanni turned her mount toward him. She took one look at him, turned and kicked Chico’s flank, taking off. “Goddammit!” he swore. So, this was how it would be—not easy. He was going to have to take off the gloves. He risked being thrown by giving Liberty a snap with the end of his rein. The stallion reared. Paul hung on, then leaned low in the saddle while Liberty closed the space between them. By God, he was going to catch her, make her listen, get through to her. There was no one within shouting distance to distract them. For once in his life, he was going to finish! Even if he had to cover Vanessa’s mouth with his hand! It only took him a few minutes to catch up to her, thanks to Liberty, the champion of the stable. Pulling alongside Vanni he reached out over her hands and grabbed her reins, pulling Chico to a stop. The expression she turned on him was fierce. “What?” she demanded. “Listen to me!” he retorted. “Make it quick!” “Fine. Here’s quick. I love you. I’ve always loved you.I loved you before Matt saw you, but I didn’t have hisguts and I hung back. I’ve regretted that forever. Now I have—” “A baby coming,” she interrupted, lifting her chin. “Listen! I don’t know much about being a father! Just what I watched when I was growing up! And you know what I saw? I saw my parents with their arms around each other all the time! I saw them look at each other with all kinds of emotions—love and trust and commitment and—Vanni, here’s the ugly truth—if I made a baby, I’m not angry about that. It wasn’t on purpose, but I’m not angry. I’ll do my damn best, and I’m real sorry that I’m not in love with the baby’s mother. I’ll still take care of them—and not just by writing a check. I’ll be involved—take care of the child like a real father, support the mother the best I can. What that child is not going to see is his parents looking at each other like they’ve made a terrible mistake. I want him to see his dad with his arms around his wife and—” “Did you try?” she asked. “Did you give the woman who’s got your baby in her a chance?” “Is that what you want for her? She’s a decent person, Vanessa—she didn’t get pregnant on purpose. You want her stuck with a man who’s got another woman on his mind? I didn’t want this to happen to her—I’m not sticking her with half a husband! She deserves a chance to find someone who can give her the real thing.” “But she loves you. She does, doesn’t she? She wanted to get married.” “Vanessa, she’s scared and alone. It’s what comes to mind. She’ll be all right when she realizes I’m not going to let her down. And I’m not going to—” “All this because you couldn’t open your mouth and say how you felt, what you wanted,” she said hotly. “I wanted so little from you—just a word or gesture—some hint that you had feelings for me. Instead, you took your wounded little heart to another woman and—” She stopped her tirade as she saw his eyes narrow and his frown deepen. He glared at her for a long moment, then he jumped off the stallion, her mount’s reins still in his hands. He led the horses the short distance to the river’s edge, to a bank of trees. “What are you doing?” she asked, hanging on to the pommel. He secured the horses at a fallen tree, then reached up to her, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her none too gently out of the saddle. He whirled her around and pressed her up against a tree, holding her wrists over her head and pinioning her there with the whole length of his body. His face was close to hers. “You never opened your mouth, either,” he said. She was stunned speechless. She couldn’t remember a time Paul had ever behaved like this—aggressive, commanding. He leaned closer. “Open it now,” he demanded of her just before he covered her mouth with his.

He urged the horse a little faster and when he was within her hearing, he whistled. The piercing sound cut through the air and Vanni turned her mount toward him. She took one look at him, turned and kicked Chico’s flank, taking off. “Goddammit!” he swore. So, this was how it would be—not easy. He was going to have to take off the gloves. He risked being thrown by giving Liberty a snap with the end of his rein. The stallion reared. Paul hung on, then leaned low in the saddle while Liberty closed the space between them. By God, he was going to catch her, make her listen, get through to her. There was no one within shouting distance to distract them. For once in his life, he was going to finish! Even if he had to cover Vanessa’s mouth with his hand! It only took him a few minutes to catch up to her, thanks to Liberty, the champion of the stable. Pulling alongside Vanni he reached out over her hands and grabbed her reins, pulling Chico to a stop. The expression she turned on him was fierce. “What?” she demanded. “Listen to me!” he retorted. “Make it quick!” “Fine. Here’s quick. I love you. I’ve always loved you.I loved you before Matt saw you, but I didn’t have hisguts and I hung back. I’ve regretted that forever. Now I have—” “A baby coming,” she interrupted, lifting her chin. “Listen! I don’t know much about being a father! Just what I watched when I was growing up! And you know what I saw? I saw my parents with their arms around each other all the time! I saw them look at each other with all kinds of emotions—love and trust and commitment and—Vanni, here’s the ugly truth—if I made a baby, I’m not angry about that. It wasn’t on purpose, but I’m not angry. I’ll do my damn best, and I’m real sorry that I’m not in love with the baby’s mother. I’ll still take care of them—and not just by writing a check. I’ll be involved—take care of the child like a real father, support the mother the best I can. What that child is not going to see is his parents looking at each other like they’ve made a terrible mistake. I want him to see his dad with his arms around his wife and—” “Did you try?” she asked. “Did you give the woman who’s got your baby in her a chance?” “Is that what you want for her? She’s a decent person, Vanessa—she didn’t get pregnant on purpose. You want her stuck with a man who’s got another woman on his mind? I didn’t want this to happen to her—I’m not sticking her with half a husband! She deserves a chance to find someone who can give her the real thing.” “But she loves you. She does, doesn’t she? She wanted to get married.” “Vanessa, she’s scared and alone. It’s what comes to mind. She’ll be all right when she realizes I’m not going to let her down. And I’m not going to—” “All this because you couldn’t open your mouth and say how you felt, what you wanted,” she said hotly. “I wanted so little from you—just a word or gesture—some hint that you had feelings for me. Instead, you took your wounded little heart to another woman and—” She stopped her tirade as she saw his eyes narrow and his frown deepen. He glared at her for a long moment, then he jumped off the stallion, her mount’s reins still in his hands. He led the horses the short distance to the river’s edge, to a bank of trees. “What are you doing?” she asked, hanging on to the pommel. He secured the horses at a fallen tree, then reached up to her, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her none too gently out of the saddle. He whirled her around and pressed her up against a tree, holding her wrists over her head and pinioning her there with the whole length of his body. His face was close to hers. “You never opened your mouth, either,” he said. She was stunned speechless. She couldn’t remember a time Paul had ever behaved like this—aggressive, commanding. He leaned closer. “Open it now,” he demanded of her just before he covered her mouth with his.

I am so proud of you.” It was the last thing Eve expected her mother to say, much less in a public location. “Proud of me?” “Oh, you rode like a Windham. I wish Bartholomew had been alive to see his baby sister out there, soaring over one fence after another. I wish St. Just had been here to brag on you properly. I wish… oh, I wish…” She reached for Eve and enfolded her daughter in a fierce, tight hug. “You showed them, Eve. You showed us all. Deene will be wroth with you for such a stunt, but he’ll get over it. A man in love forgives a great deal. Just ask your father.” Her Grace whispered this between hugs, tighter hugs, and teary smiles. “Mama, Deene is the one who said I ought to ride. I would never have had the…” The courage. The faith in herself. The determination… All the things she’d called upon time after time in the past seven years, her own strengths, and she’d been blind to them. “I could not have ridden that race without my husband’s blessing and support, Mama.” “But you did ride it,” Her Grace said, pulling Eve in for another hug. “I about fainted when you had that bad moment. Your father had to watch the last fences for me, but then the finish… You were a flat streak, you and that horse. I’ve no doubt he’d jump the Channel for you did you ask it. Oh, Eve… You must promise me never to do such a thing again, though. I could not bear it. Your father nearly had another heart seizure.” “I did no such thing, and I will ask you, Duchess, to keep your voice down if you’re going to slander my excellent health in such a manner.” His Grace was capable of bellowing, of shouting down the rafters, of letting every servant on three floors know at once of his frequent displeasures, but the duke was not using ducal volume as he approached his wife and youngest daughter. He was using his husband-voice, his volume respectful, even if his tone was a trifle testy. “Papa.” Eve pulled back from her mother’s embrace to meet her father’s blue-eyed gaze. Mama might be willing to make allowances, but His Grace was another matter entirely. “Evie.” He glanced from daughter to mother. “You’ve upset your mother, my girl. Gave her a nasty moment there at that oxer.” She was to be scolded? That was perhaps inevitable, given that His Grace— Her father pulled her into his arms. “But what’s one bad moment, if it means you’re finally back on the horse, though, eh? I particularly liked how you took the water—that showed style and heart. And that last fence… quite a race you rode, Daughter. I could not be more proud of you.” He extended an arm to the duchess, who joined the embrace with a whispered, “Oh, Percival…” So

The Future Glory of Zion 1“Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the LORD. 2“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. 3For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. 4“Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. 5For your Maker is your husband— the LORD Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. 6The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit— a wife who married young, only to be rejected,” says your God. 7“For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. 8In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer. 9“To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. 10Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you. 11“O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will build you with stones of turquoise,† your foundations with sapphires.† 12I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones. 13All your sons will be taught by the LORD, and great will be your children’s peace. 14In righteousness you will be established: Tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear. Terror will be far removed; it will not come near you. 15If anyone does attack you, it will not be my doing; whoever attacks you will surrender to you. 16“See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to work havoc; 17no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me,” declares the LORD.

As their uncle, Earl Spencer, says their characters are very different from the public image. “The press have always written up William as the terror and Harry as a rather quiet second son. In fact William is a very self-possessed, intelligent and mature boy and quite shy. He is quite formal and stiff, sounding older than his years when he answers the phone.” It is Harry who is the mischievous imp of the family. Harry’s puckish character manifested itself to his uncle during the return flight from Necker, the Caribbean island owned by Virgin airline boss Richard Branson. He recalls: “Harry was presented with his breakfast. He had his headphones on and a computer game in front of him but he was determined to eat his croissant. It took him about five minutes to manoeuvre all his electronic gear, his knife, his croissant and his butter. When he eventually managed to get a mouthful there was a look of such complete satisfaction on his face. It was a really wonderful moment.” His godparent Carolyn Bartholomew says, without an ounce of prejudice, that Harry is “the most affectionate, demonstrative and huggable little boy” while William is very much like his mother, “intuitive, switched on and highly perceptive.” At first she thought the future king was a “little terror.” “He was naughty and had tantrums,” she recalls. “But when I had my two children I realized that they are all like that at some point. In fact William is kind-hearted, very much like Diana. He would give you his last Rolo sweet. In fact he did on one occasion. He was longing for this sweet, he only had one left and he gave it to me.” Further evidence of his generous heart occurred when he gathered together all his pocket money, which only amounted to a few pence, and solemnly handed it over to her. But he is no angel as Carolyn saw when she visited Highgrove. Diana had just finished a swim in the open air pool and had changed into a white toweling dressing gown as she waited for William to follow her. Instead he splashed about as though he were drowning and slowly sank to the bottom. His mother, not knowing whether it was a fake or not, struggled to get out of her robe. Then, realizing the urgency, she dived in still in her dressing gown. At that moment he resurfaced, shouting and laughing at the success of his ruse. Diana was not amused. Generally William is a youngster who displays qualities of responsibility and thoughtfulness beyond his years and enjoys a close rapport with his younger brother whom friends believe will make an admirable adviser behind the scenes when William eventually becomes king. Diana feels that it is a sign that in some way they will share the burdens of monarchy in the years to come. Her approach is conditioned by her firmly held belief that she will never become queen and that her husband will never become King Charles III.

Caleb’s expression was thunderous. “Where the hell have you been?” he growled, his arms folded across his chest. “I stayed the night in a boarding house,” Lily answered as she climbed down from the surrey. “Did you and Winola and Rupert have a nice dinner together?” He glared at her. “Get in that house!” “And do what?” Lily retorted. “Write ‘I will not disobey my husband’ a thousand times?” “Move!” Caleb roared. Lily’s aplomb fled in an instant, and she dashed toward the door of the cabin. “I’ll thank you to remember that I’m in the family way,” she was quick to say. She was recalling that other time, when Caleb would have paddled her if Velvet hadn’t happened along just in time to prevent it. Inside the cabin Caleb set Lily in a chair and proceeded to deliver a lecture that was, in many ways, worse than a spanking. He shouted, he listed the perils of traveling alone, he swore by all that was holy that if Lily ever did such a stupid thing again he’d wring her neck. Lily’s eyes were wide by the time he began to wind down, and when he sent her to the bedroom she went. When Caleb came to her it was from a different direction than expected. A terrible racket arose on the other side of the bedroom wall, and Lily watched in horrified amazement as an ax bit through the new wood. Furiously Caleb shaped a rude door. “Now,” he said, tossing the ax behind him, “it’s all one house. Welcome to our bedroom, Mrs. Halliday.” Lily was convinced she’d married a madman. “You stay away from me,” she said, scooting backwards on the bed. She didn’t move fast enough. Caleb caught hold of one of her legs, lifted it high, and began untying her shoelace. “There isn’t a chance in hell of that, sodbuster,” he said, and then he began rolling Lily’s stocking down. She trembled as his hand caressed her inner thigh for the briefest moment. “Not a chance in hell.” Only when the lovemaking was over and Caleb had risen from the bed did Lily’s pride come back into its own. The moment he stepped through the hacked-out opening into his side of the house she moved the bureau in front of the opening. “You stay on your side,” she said when she saw him through the opening above the chest of drawers, “and I’ll keep to mine.” As usual, Caleb had expected his romantic attentions to make everything all right between them. “Damn it, Lily,” he growled, bracing his hands on the bureau top and leaning forward ominously, “we’re married!” “As far as I’m concerned, we can just forget that unfortunate fact.” “That’s fine with me,” Caleb snapped. And then he turned and stormed away. Lily

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” —Genesis 8:22 (NIV) As I walked to my mom’s house next door, I looked at the silhouettes of birds in the trees with the sun setting behind them. The road was still warm beneath my bare feet, and my leg muscles were tired from hours spent doing yard work and clearing the garden for winter (or “putting it to bed” as my husband calls it). Blackbirds rested on the stark branches, watching me until I was just beneath them, and then they flew away in a rush of energy. Today was warm. The sun bright. Most of our trees have lost their leaves, but our maple by the barn was holding on, wearing its marvelous colors like an ornate cloak. “Sabra, put shoes on!” the neighbor shouted from her doorway. “It’s nearly winter, don’t you know?” This is our joke. Every season she notices my feet and my tendency to be barefoot as long as possible. In March she calls out, “It must be spring! You don’t have shoes on!” And then when the snow falls, she yells, “Oh no, look at those boots! We must be in for a long winter.” With each step, I feel the warm tarry road beneath my feet. In a week or two, I’ll be wearing big thick socks and warm shoes. For now, I take in the beauty of a sunny path and hold it as a gift to help me through the long winter ahead. Dear Lord, may I always be mindful of the beauty in every season You have placed beneath my feet. —Sabra Ciancanelli Digging Deeper: Ps 19:1; Eccl 3:1–4

shouted. “Anyone with two eyes can see he’s so far gone because you can’t give him your milk! My sipping some cream has nothing to do with it!” She slammed the door behind her. In the end, eight-week-old Waldemar was too far gone. When Adeline gave him some of the remaining fresh cream, he did indeed throw it up and every spoonful after. Then he developed a cough that further weakened him. Two evenings later, Emil came home to find Adeline cradling the baby in her arms. He was swaddled and laboring for breath. “He’s dying now,” she said. “He won’t open his eyes anymore.” “No,” Emil rasped. “He’s not dying.” “He is,” she said. “I can feel it. Can we hold him together?” Sadness swallowed her husband whole before he came over beside her and they held their infant son between them, grieving for hours before he took his final breath and let it go in a slim, devastating wheeze that tore through the last bit of strength holding Adeline together. She began to choke, sob, to moan with a pain she’d never known, worse than giving birth to him, more primal, the agony of her heart cracking. Emil stayed strong for her, held her through the worst of it. He sat by her for more than an hour, and never

Allison!” Matthew shouts to Allison, who is sitting with Vivi and Franny. “Where is your husband’s leash?” “She’s the one who wears the collar,” Max chides, winking at Allison whose cheeks turn pink, and I almost die when Matthew pushes him. My mouth opens in shock as Michael just grimaces. “You guys are gross.

Life was so much simpler when going “eeny-meeny-miney-mo” made decisions, and mistakes were corrected by simply shouting “overs.” The rest of your life lay in front of you, rolled out like a red carpet. And you and your friends would live forever.

, because he was rich my father consented to our marriage, and they became partners in their business. Afterwards, within a month indeed, the Apostles came to Tyre, and we attended their preaching—at first, because we were curious to learn the truth of this new faith against which my father railed, for, as you know, he is of the strictest sect of the Jews; and then, because our hearts were touched. So in the end we believed, and were baptised, both on one night, by the very hand of the brother of the Lord. The holy Apostles departed, blessing us before they went, and Demas, who would play no double part, told my father of what we had done. Oh! mother, it was awful to see. He raved, shouted and cursed us in his rage, blaspheming Him we worship. More, woe is me that I should have to tell it: When we refused to become apostates he denounced us to the priests, and the priests denounced us to the Romans, and we were seized and thrown into prison; but my husband's wealth, most of it except that which the priests and Romans stole, stayed with my father. For many months we were held in prison here in Cæsarea; then they took my husband to Berytus, to be trained as a gladiator, and murdered him. Here I have stayed since with this beloved servant, Nehushta, who also became a Christian and shared our fate, and now, by the decree of Agrippa, it is my turn and hers to die to-day." "Child, you should not weep for that; nay, you should be glad who at once will find your husband and your Saviour." "Mother, I am glad; but, you see my state. It is for the child's sake I weep, that now never will be born. Had it won life even for an hour all of us would have dwelt together in bliss until eternity. But it cannot be—it cannot be." Anna looked at her with her piercing eyes. "Have you, then, also the gift of prophecy, child, who are so young a member of the Church, that you dare to say that this or that cannot be? The future is in the hand of God. King Agrippa, your father, the Romans, the cruel Jews, those lions that roar yonder, and we who are doomed to feed them, are all in the hand of God, and that which He wills shall befall, and no other thing. Therefore, let us praise Him and rejoice,

I looked behind me; gross darkness pressed upon our rear, and came rolling over the land after us like a torrent. We had scarce sat down, when darkness overspread us, not like that of a moonless or cloudy night, but of a room when it is shut up, and the lamp put out. You could hear the shrieks of women, the crying of children, and the shouts of men; some were seeking their children, others their parents, others their wives or husbands, and only distinguishing them by their voices; one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some praying to die, from the very fear of dying; many lifting their hands to the gods; but the great part imagining that there were no gods left anywhere, and that the last and eternal night was come upon the world.

Now git goin thru that screen door before I use it as a weapon. You're just a witless fool. That's what you are, a fool, Mae Mae said, shaking her head as if she had just discovered truth. An' put a log on that fire for me on your way out. Make yourself useful for something but misery. Cause you messed with the wrong MaMae. Look in my eyes. Philip, in all of his dejection and correction, had to look with respect. Yes, maam, he said sheepishly looking up from from the pine floor into her narrow, serious eyes. See I see right thru ya, she said, noddin her chin and holding her eyes like fire into his soul. An' the motives of your heart are stinkin up the place. I don't want the kids to smell it when they wake up from their naps. I don't know what's wrong with your generation. Missing men. No fathers. It disgusts me. At least in my time, women got some respect an alimony. An my daughter's got six kids and broke. But yours, they just gone missing. Hiding up in the woods with some women. Or abscounding to your cousin Satchie's trailer. Not supportin' them kids. Goin to jail. Servin their selves instead of the One who made 'em. It ain't no man problem, it's a sin probl'm. An people my age just sick that none of yall, no not one, know the capital letters of RESPONSIBILITY. Now take your lies and country jeans an drive down the gravel cause you ain't welcome here no more. The screen is locked, Ma Mae shouted as Philip walked blankly out the door.

Raven felt a stirring in her mind. Raven? You fear for your safety. Mikhail was heavy with sleep, fighting his way up through the layers to the surface. Now she was worried. Mikhail was a question mark in her mind. She didn’t know what he would do, only that he felt protective toward her. For herself, for Mikhail, for Jacob, she needed to make Jacob understand that she wanted no part of him. I can handle this, she sent a sharp reassurance. “Jacob.” She used a firm schoolmarm tone. “I think you should leave and go back to the inn. I’m not the kind of woman to be bullied by your attitude. This is harassment, and I”ll have no compunction about registering a complaint with the local police, or whatever they’re called.” She held her breath. Deep inside her mind, she could feel Mikhail. Still like a predator. “Fine, Raven, sell yourself to the highest bidder like some whore. Try to find yourself a rich husband. He’ll use you and dump you, that’s what men like Dubrinsky do! The two of you deserve one another. And don’t come crying to me when he leaves you pregnant and alone.” Jacob shouted. He spat out a few additional ugly words and stomped away. Raven let out her breath slowly, thankfully. See--she forced laughter into her thoughts--I took care of the problem all by my little feminine self. Amazing, isn’t it?

Fine, Raven, sell yourself to the highest bidder like some whore. Try to find yourself a rich husband. He’ll use you and dump you, that’s what men like Dubrinsky do! The two of you deserve one another. And don’t come crying to me when he leaves you pregnant and alone.” Jacob shouted. He spat out a few additional ugly words and stomped away. Raven let out her breath slowly, thankfully. See--she forced laughter into her thoughts--I took care of the problem all by my little feminine self. Amazing, isn’t it?” From the other side of a grove of trees, out of her sight, Jacob suddenly screamed in terror, the sound fading to a thin wail. The roar of an enraged bear mingled with Jacob’s second scream. Something heavy crashed through the underbrush in the opposite direction of Raven. She felt Mikhail’s laughter, low, amused, very male. Very funny, Mikhail. Jacob was broadcasting fear, but not pain. You have a questionable sense of humor.

I visited a family… Both husband and wife had fought. They met at the front and got married there: “We celebrated our wedding in the trench. Before the battle. I made a white dress for myself out of a German parachute.” He had been a machine gunner, she a radio operator. The man immediately sent his wife to the kitchen: “Prepare something for us.” The kettle was already boiling, and the sandwiches were served, she sat down with us, but the husband immediately got her to her feet again: “Where are the strawberries? Where are our treats from the country?” After my repeated requests, he reluctantly relinquished his place, saying: “Tell it the way I taught you. Without tears and women’s triffles: how you wanted to be beautiful, how you wept when they cut off your braid.” Later she whispered to me: “He studied The History of the Great Patriotic War with me all last night. He was afraid for me. And now he’s worried I won’t remember right. Not the way I should.” That happened more than once, in more than one house. Yes, they cry a lot. They shout. Swallow heart pills after I am gone. Call an ambulance. But even so they beg me: “Come. Be sure to come. We’ve been silent so long. Forty years…

Your husband is doing this for your own good, they both concur. ‘Your own good’ was the mantra of my mother when I was growing up – it justified being force-fed laxatives once every three months, not celebrating my birthdays at school, curfews against travelling alone, refusal of permission to go to picnics. ‘Your own good’ was the reason my English teacher offered when she pulled me by the ear and led me out of the classroom, shouting rowdy girl rowdy girl rowdy girl this is for your own good and struck me with a wooden ruler. ‘Your own good’ was what justified my teenage neighbour putting his fingers inside my eight-year-old vagina to check for forest insects and bed bugs and evil imps. When I hear ‘your own good’ I am reduced to being a child again. I do not argue any more. I go silent.

Your husband is doing this for your own good, they both concur. ‘Your own good’ was the mantra of my mother when I was growing up – it justified being force-fed laxatives once every three months, not celebrating my birthdays at school, curfews against travelling alone, refusal of permission to go to picnics. ‘Your own good’ was the reason my English teacher offered when she pulled me by the ear and led me out of the classroom, shouting rowdy girl rowdy girl rowdy girl this is for your own good and struck me with a wooden ruler. ‘Your own good’ was what justified my teenage neighbour putting his fingers inside my eight-year-old vagina to check for forest insects and bed bugs and evil imps. When I hear ‘your own good’ I am reduced to being a child again. I do not argue any more. I go silent.

When he was three years old Jackie ran into the house crying. I asked, "What's happened? What's wrong?" He showed me his bleeding hand - the palm of his hand had been scraped. "How did you do that? It isn't bad! Did you hurt it on something dirty?" I patted the blood away with a tissue. He stopped crying; he pressed against me with his wet face. My husband said, coming into the kitchen, "Let's see what happened -" He took Jackie's hand and stared down at it. Jackie's hand was very small in his; his own hand was not clean. He had been working on the lawn mower. "Should this be washed out or what?" he said, looking at me. "You think there's some germs in it?" "I'd better wash it out." I turned on the hot water. "Maybe it should be sterilised. It should be washed out good," my husband said slowly. He stared down at Jackie's hand and for a few seconds he was silent. He loved Jackie very much; he was always afraid of Jackie getting hit by a car. Now Jackie tried to get away from him, uneasy. My husband looked strange, as if the sight of blood frightened him. "I can wash it out. I'll put a bandage on it," I said. He paid no attention to me. Instead, he turned on one of the electric burners of the stove, still holding Jackie's hand. "If it was something rusty... if it was some dirt, some filth, he could get very sick," my husband said. "The germs should be all killed." "What? What are you going to do?" "I know what to do," he said irritably, vaguely. "All it needs is a bandage...." Jackie began to cry, afraid of his father. He tried to get away. "Goddam it, hold still! You want to get lockjaw or something? Why is this kid always crying?" He pulled Jackie to the stove and before I could stop him he pressed his palm down onto the burner - Jackie screamed, kicked, broke away - it was all over in a second. "You're crazy! You burned him!" I cried. My husband stared at me. Jackie was screaming, gasping for breath, he had backed away against the kitchen table. His screams rose higher and higher. My husband stared at him and at me, very pale. "You're crazy!" I shouted at him. I ran cold water for Jackie to stick his hand under. The burn was not bad - the stove hadn't been hot enough. "I didn't mean to hurt him," my husband said slowly, "I... I don't know what...." "Putting his hand on the stove! God, you must be crazy!" There was something pulsating in me, a bright, thrilling nerve - I wanted to laugh in my husband's face, I wanted to claw at him, I wanted to gather Jackie up in my arms and run out of the house with him! I hated my husband and I was glad that he had made such a stupid mistake. I was glad he had burned Jackie and that Jackie was crying in my arms, pressing against me, terrified of his father. "I don't know what I was thinking off," he said. His voice was vague and slow and surprised. "I didn't mean...I'm sorry...." "Don't scare him anymore!" "I'm sorry. I must be going crazy...." "Where did you ever get such an idea?" He rubbed his hands violently across his face, across his eyes. "Jesus, I must be going crazy," he said. "You're just lucky the stove wasn't hot." Jackie kept crying, frightened. I took him into the bathroom and put a bandage on the cut - only a small scratch - no real burn at all.

There are moments when adults disgust you in ways they would never understand: I believe that, you know. I had one of those moments then, and it only made me feel worse. When Regina shouted at her husband, I saw her as both vulgar and scared, and because I loved her, I had never wanted to see her either way.