Harvesting the Heart

I knew that somewhere God was laughing. He had taken the other half of my heart, the one person who knew me better than I knew myself, and He had done what nothing else could do. By bringing us together, He had set into motion the one thing that could tear us apart.

Suddenly I realize that this is what I've been waiting for - a man who depends entirely on me... I dreamed for years of a man who couldn't live without me, a man who pictured my face when he closed his eyes, who loved me when I was a mess in the morning and when dinner was late and even when I overloaded the washing machine and burned out the motor. [My son] stares up at me as if I can do no wrong. I have always wanted someone who treats me the way he does; I just didn't know that I'd have to give birth to him.

Perhaps he d always known that the truth of a person lies in the heart.

With these words Jake had let go of me. Which proved that he knew more about why I was leaving than even I did. I had believed that I was running away from what had happened. I did not know, not until I met Nicholas days later, that the whole time I was really running towards what was yet to be.

I imagined what it would be like to hold a butterfly in your hands something bejeweled and treasured and to know that despite your devotion it was dying by degrees.

[...] Wondering why white people named girl babies things like Hope and Faith and Patience - names they could never live up to - and black mothers called their daughters Mercy, Deliverance, Salvation - crosses they'd always have to bear.

After sticking out life, I hope it's whatever you want it to be.

Marriage didnt really seem to be about love; it was about the ability to live together for a long period of time

could not be blamed just because no one ever mentioned that once you closed the storybook, Cinderella still had to do laundry and clean the toilet and take care of the crown prince.

It worked out the way it should have,

I wondered what the hell had convinced me to live at the end of someone else’s life rather than live my own,

I was starting to see that the past might color the future, but it didn’t determine it. And if I could believe that, it was much easier to let go of what I’d done wrong.

Perhaps he’d always known that the truth of a person lies in the heart.

He wandered off, leaving me to wonder why white people named girl babies things like Hope and Faith and Patience—names they could never live up to—and black mothers called their daughters Mercy, Deliverance, Salvation—crosses they’d always have to bear.

i had not meant to leave them; i had only meant to leave. i wasnt running away from them; i was only running away

whatever does happen the way it’s supposed to? You don’t plan life, you just do it.

on top of a print of a turbaned man with a face as old as honesty.

What if, when I get home, Nicholas is standing on the porch with open arms, willing to pick up where we left off? Can I let myself make the same mistakes all over again?

She had given me my first crayons and coloring book, and had held me when I messed up, assuring me that the lines were for people with no imagination

I started to wonder what it might have felt like to live your life in a place someone else had carved.

He wondered why, after years of wanting to stand at the very top, he felt so goddamned empty.

But he wondered how very different two worlds had to be before they kept people apart.

there is such a difference between living the life you are expected to live and living the life you want to live.

Her silhouette is obscenely green against the frost, as if she has left in her wake an artificial spring.

When you don't keep looking back its that much easier not to trip and fall.

What will Dad say?” he whispered. His mother could not possibly have heard him at such a distance, but she seemed to understand his question. “I imagine,” she said, stepping into a neat square of the brilliant afternoon, “he’ll say, ‘Hello, Max.

I can stand on my own in a world that is falling apart. I can stand so well, I realize, that I can support someone else.

I had believed that I was running away from what had happened. I did not know—not until I met Nicholas days later—that the whole time I was really running toward what was yet to be.

he was starting in the middle.