Call the Canaries Home

In a world that was determined to forget, someone had to do the remembering.

How was it that each of her children knew precisely which buttons to push and how much pressure to apply to shatter her? Then again, maybe it was because they’d spent all those months inside her own body, nestled against her heart, that they knew exactly how to break it.

Look back for too long and you’ll end up with a mess of broken dreams and a crick in your neck.

Men were always there for the fun parts, she thought. Women were always left to pick up the pieces.

After everything that happened, I think this was what I’d taken from it. We could never keep every bad thing from happening. All we could do was cherish the good when we had it for however long it was ours.

maybe it was because they’d spent all those months inside her own body, nestled against her heart, that they knew exactly how to break it.

one with the scholarship. So”—he shrugged—“I stayed.

You can’t keep them small forever,” Charlie used to say when Dennis was learning to drive. “You’ve got to let them go sometime and trust that they know enough to stay out of trouble.

As sorry as I am to have disappointed you again, could you please stop pinning all your happiness on me? It’s exhausting.

it had been years since I’d stepped inside a building of worship—unless you counted SoulCycle—and I didn’t have any plans to break my streak.

creature who had stolen her breath and her heart along with all her good sense. She would never be the same. She had a daughter now.

It scared her a little to know she was capable of loving a person so much, that all that love had been waiting there her whole life, like a dormant seed just aching to get out and grow up into something bigger than the cypress trees in the bayou and the pines that shot up all around her yard. She would never be able to put it all back inside her if anything happened to this child, this perfect little

I knocked tentatively and rearranged my face into something I hoped resembled excitement.

I was so afraid of losing the best parts of my life that I sometimes forgot to enjoy them.

But somewhere inside me, it also felt like I mattered to someone. I mattered enough to someone so much that she would humiliate herself—and me—just to let everyone else know it.

Mama, how can I just leave without all my babies? How can I go home when a piece of my heart is lost?” A howl emanated from within her, piercing Marylynn’s insides so deeply that she wondered if it had actually come from her. How could she have been so careless to misplace a child?

Then again, maybe it was because they’d spent all those months inside her own body, nestled against her heart, that they knew exactly how to break

No point in trying to shovel water out of a sinking boat with a slotted spoon,

But after thirty-two years on this rock, I’d come to realize that sometimes you had to check the rearview mirror to see the shape of it all and figure out how the hell you ended up where you were—

The good Lord giveth and He taketh away. No point in trying to shovel water out of a sinking boat with a slotted spoon,

The pain of losing him had never really left her, but she’d been able to live with the ache because of all the pieces of himself he’d left behind.

She’d always meant well, but she loved hard.

winding trail with switchbacks and steep hills and deep ditches filled with steaming piles of manure.

She was too young. So sorry for your loss. She was lucky to have you. What a tragedy. One by one, they came, and though she knew the messages were sincere, she wasn’t ready to let go of the anger.

My childhood memories were all wrapped up in her, and when she died, they would die with her.

Unlike Rayanne, it had been years since I’d stepped inside a building of worship—unless you counted SoulCycle—and I didn’t have any plans to break my streak.

Sometimes it was worth risking everything to save the ones you love from heartache, from disappointment, sometimes from themselves.