Nora Goes Off Script

I like the way he notices things. A noticer is a person who can never be entirely self-absorbed,

If you own up to not being perfect, life gets easier.

Have you ever felt like you’re disappearing?” he asks. “Like you’re sure one day you’re going to wake up and find that the truest parts of yourself have been replaced by someone else’s plans?

It’s the classic self-correcting problem. If someone leaves you, it’s because they didn’t want to be with you. All you lost was someone who didn’t want to be there anyway.

The basic truth of parenting fills my heart: If your kids are okay, you don’t really have any problems. I will relish this feeling.

To write is to re-create something as you'd like it to be.

At the corner of arrogance and cluelessness, you find the worst kind of person.

And second, that the best things come back. Sometimes it’s right after the commercial, sometimes it takes longer. But time and sunshine bring growth, and life unfolds just the way it’s supposed to.

But time and sunshine bring growth, and life unfolds just the way it’s supposed to.

The best antidote to old memories is new ones.

If someone leaves you, it's because they didn't want to be with you. All you lost was someone who didn't want to be there anyway.

It’s about how the sunrise can be the most important thing in the world to a person who’s lost touch with his soul.

When I’m done, I ceremonially delete the Instagram app and move my banking app to the exact spot where it used to sit. I get in bed and scroll through my account. The big deposit, the interest. It’s infinitely satisfying, and I wish there was a like button to press.

You know what? I don’t trust you. Here.” Leo grabs my left hand and shoves a thin gold band on my finger. This is less like a romantic gesture and more like the handcuffing of a fugitive. “We’re married now, okay? Like in your head, just get that straight. This is happening.

Love isn't something you need to earn. Dad left because Dad, not us.

Oh,” is all I can manage.

the best things come back. Sometimes it’s right after the commercial, sometimes it takes longer. But time and sunshine bring growth, and life unfolds just the way it’s supposed to.

I hoped my kids could feel how much stronger I was without Ben dragging me down. Without Ben, I had the energy to be mother and father and provider and playmate. People usually talk about their new normal as some sort of difficult adjustment, but mine left me lighter. I was released from worrying about what Ben would spend. I no longer needed to deflect his criticisms of the kids or myself. I was free.

All you lost was someone who didn’t want to be there anyway.” Leo laughs. “Jesus. You’re not much of a romantic, are you?” “I am not. At all. I believed in marriage at any cost until that moment. Then I just let go,” I tell him. And to Naomi, “You’re not a victim here. Or anywhere. That’s what this whole movie’s about.

I imagine his landscaping this property like a maestro, arranging the magnolias and the forsythia beneath them to announce the beginning of spring. After a long gray winter, these first pink and yellow blooms shout, “Something’s happening!” By May they’ll have gone green with the rest of the yard, a quiet before the peonies and hydrangea bloom.

and I ignored him the way you do when you’re trying to stay married.

While I never bought into the glamour of the hilltopper, when I met Ben I sort of became taken by the ease of it all. His quiet expectation that the world would arrange itself around his whims. His confidence that he would never be called out or punished for any wrongdoing. He was that kind of slightly mean guy that made you feel superior if he liked you. Since the day he picked me, I’d done everything I could not to blow it. And yet here we were.

personal responsibility. If you own up to not being perfect, life gets easier.

You know what’s wrong with Mickey?” Or “You know what’s wrong with that guy at the bank?” These were rhetorical questions, and the only real variety to them was which person had wronged him that day. He liked to keep the TV on at all times, background noise while he moved the papers outlining his newest scheme around on the kitchen table. Ben took up a lot of space.

She’s been given instructions to give his fiancée anything she asks for. “You know I’m not going to ask for anything,” I say. “I know. And that’s the best part.” She’s crying again.

You’re sure lucky you have Nora,” Rick said as he signed the check. Besides that moment, I’ve never really liked Rick,

If you’re trying to say it doesn’t sound like me, I couldn’t agree more. It’s like I suffered temporary insanity.” “Sometimes that’s what love is,” she says.

Just do me a favor. Let me answer the door if he ever knocks,” Leo says.