Apples Never Fall

Once you’ve hit a ball there’s no point watching to see where it’s going. You can’t change its flight path now. You have to think about your next move. Not what you should have done. What you do now.

Watching someone have a panic attack was like looking in the eyes of someone trapped behind glass, drowning right in front of you.

That was the secret of a happy marriage: step away from the rage.

She made the right choice for the girl she was then.

That’s how she finally made herself fall back to sleep: by remembering all the glorious moments, one after the other after the other, her children’s ecstatic faces looking for their parents in the stands, looking for their approval, looking for their love, knowing it was there, knowing—she hoped they knew this—that it would always be there, even long after she and Stan were gone, because love like that was infinite.

Each time she fell out of love with him, he saw it happen and waited it out. He never stopped loving her, even those times when he felt deeply hurt and betrayed by her, even in that bad year when they talked about separating, he’d just gone along with it, waiting for her to come back to him, thanking God and his dad up above each time she did.

When she looked at photos of her children when they were little, she sometimes thought, Did I notice how beautiful they were? Was I actually there? Did I just skim the surface of my entire damned life?)

When she thought of that long night, it was like remembering an extraordinarily tough match where she’d prevailed. Except there was no trophy or applause. The only recognition you got for surviving a night like that came from other mothers. Only they understood the epic nature of your trivial achievements.

She didn’t come from old money or new money but from never-quite-enough money.

She found that the less she thought, the more often she found simple truths appearing right in front of her.

She’d dreamed of playing at Wimbledon too, and she’d dreamed of seeing one of her children or one of her students play at Wimbledon, and she’d dreamed, far more reasonably and feasibly, of one day being a spectator at Wimbledon, but her dreams didn’t have the same ferocious entitlement as Stan’s, because she was a woman, and women know that babies and husbands and sick parents can derail your dreams, at any moment they can drag you from your bed, they can forestall your career, they can lift you from your prized seat at Wimbledon from a match later described as “epic.

Their mother had that look of controlled impatience she used to get when her children fought and she didn't have time to properly lose her temper because she had things to do.

There was nothing worse than having to feel sorry for people who had wronged you. You don't want lottery wins for your enemies, but you don't want tragedies for them either. Then they got the upper hand. Damn those Delaneys.

She enjoyed being told off by them. She could hear the rhythms of her own voice, her mother’s voice, her grandmother’s voice, every relieved cranky woman from the beginning of time.

She believed men’s egos were as fragile as eggs.

We're all on our own. Even when you're surrounded by people, or sharing a bed with a loving lover, you're alone.

For the first time in her sixty-nine years she felt the fear: the fear every woman knows is always waiting for her, the possibility that lurks and scuttles in the shadows of her mind, even if she’s spent her entire life being so tenderly loved and protected by good men.

She thought of a night when Troy had been playing all the way out at Homebush in a tournament that ran so far behind schedule he didn’t even get onto the court until midnight. Stan was with Troy, Joy was at home with the other kids. Logan was worryingly sick with a temperature. She didn’t sleep that night. She baked thirty cupcakes for Brooke’s birthday the next day in between tending to Logan, she did three loads of laundry, she did the accounts, and she did Troy’s history assignment on the Great Wall of China. She got seven out of ten for the assignment (she was still furious about that; she’d deserved a nine). When she thought of that long night, it was like remembering an extraordinarily tough match where she’d prevailed. Except there was no trophy or applause. The only recognition you got for surviving a night like that came from other mothers. Only they understood the epic nature of your trivial achievements.

as her grandfather used to say, “Never spoil a good story with the facts.

She’d never wanted his gratitude, just his acknowledgment. Just once.

It was just a plate, her father kept saying to Christina. He never understood what that plate represented: Disrespect. Disregard. Contempt.

Ooh, sacrilege!’ Amy had said, because her role as the oldest child was to narrate every family argument and use big words the other kids didn’t understand, while Brooke, still little and adorable, had burst into inevitable tears, and Logan’s face became blank and moronic.

Stan Delaney had always known that women had the power to draw blood with their words. It was his mother’s favorite hobby: to knife the soft, stupid, defenseless egos of her husband and her son.

remembering all the glorious moments, one after the other after the other, her children’s ecstatic faces looking for their parents in the stands, looking for their approval, looking for their love, knowing it was there, knowing—she hoped they knew this—that it would always be there, even long after she and Stan were gone, because love like that was infinite.

The ones referred to obliquely and the ones discussed in frank detail. She’d give the police everything they needed to convict her husband. She would say, Here is one possible motive and here is another, because any marriage of that many years has multiple motives for murder. Every police officer and hairdresser knows that.

Now here they were. She couldn’t exactly say if Savannah had caught them on an upswing or a downswing, or if they’d finally found an equilibrium that would last them until death did them part. Sometimes it felt like their relationship ebbed and flowed over a day, or even a conversation. She could feel affection followed by resentment in the space of ten minutes.

filling her pockets with rocks before she waded out into life.

It felt pointless celebrating without other people, as if the whole objective had always been to perform the festivities for an audience.

You put up with little things … and then the little things gradually get bigger.

Now Logan competed against Troy by not competing, which was fucking genius. You couldn’t win if only one of you was playing.