How to Pronounce Knife: Stories

You can do that with a joke, hide how you feel and mean what you say at the same time, and no one will ask you which it is.

The only love Red knew was that simple, uncomplicated, lonely love one feels for oneself in the quiet moments of the day. It was there, steady and solid in the laughter and talk of the television and with her in the grocery aisles on the weekends. It was there every night, in the dark, spectacular and sprawling in the quiet. And it all belonged to her.

Sometimes people have a way of looking at you that makes you feel you have to explain yourself.

We lose each other, or the way we know each other gets lost

But beauty, for all it could get you and all that fussing it took to get it, seemed so awful a burden to have to carry and maintain. There was so much to lose. In that moment, Red felt grateful for what she was to others—ugly. It’s one thing to be ugly and not know it. It’s another to know.

I wondered whether, in life, you get one big role, some message you need to deliver to someone, and when it's done, it's time to go. I thought go what Daniel had said about tornadoes. He was wrong about me. We weren't the same. I did not wait. I am not the kind of person who watches something happen in the distance.

Whether or not you understood the oath you made, you had to move your lips.

At church, she told us they ate one cracker and took one swallow of red wine and the rest of the time there was a man talking. She did not know exactly what he said, but he said it for a long time. Sometimes, just to give her hands something to do, she would pick up the heavy book in front of her seat and open it. Even though she didn't understand everything they were singing, she moved her lips anyway. It was just like that at the citizenship ceremony. Whether or not you understood the oath you made, you had to move your lips. After a while, for some reason she seemed to lose interest in going. She didn't say why.