Other Birds

Once you accumulate enough regrets in life, they cease to hurt you. They are simply one more thing you collect, like age spots or ugly figurines. You barely even see them anymore.

But she taught me food was really about storytelling. It was about creating something good, and then giving it away.

But Zoey was uneasy with the thought of untold stories. What happens to them? Where do they go? If you never share your stories with at least one other person, does that mean they weren't real, that they never really existed?

It had taken him all his life to understand this, but even unlikable things have worth. It was how, after all, he’d learned to live with himself.

He thinks you are a special occasion.

Children, don’t hold on to old love so hard you forget to live. Old love isn’t the only love you’ll ever have. And I can tell you from this side that it never really goes away, anyway. So let go. Whatever you’re holding on to, let go.

a local accent that always sounded to Charlotte like they were all just getting to the good part of a story.

So let go. Whatever you're holding on to, let go.

But now she wondered if finding out the truth behind some stories would constitute an even greater loss, because it meant losing something you were happy believing.

She was young enough to think that drama was something you had to run toward. She had no idea that drama doesn’t need to be chased. It knows exactly where you live.

Nice, in her experience, meant one of two things. It was either hiding something darker just beneath the surface, or it made you lower your defenses and believe that there was more of it in the world than there actually was, which always led to disappointment. Either way, she wasn't falling for it.

Trade Street was still like a fairy tale at night, with its old-fashioned streetlamps shining like lemon lollipops in front of the candy-colored businesses.

When Charlotte got home from work, she found a Tupperware container on her patio table. On it, Mac had taped a note that read, Just because. She opened the container, and the scent of chocolate and butter burst from it like from a Christmas cracker. She gave a startled laugh. Inside were the biggest chocolate chip cookies she'd ever seen, each the size of her whole hand.

Zoey picked up her spoon and tasted it, and she was immediately and startlingly transported to a perfect autumn childhood day, the kind of day when sunlight is short but it's still warm enough to play outside. For the second course, the chilled crab cake was only the size of a silver dollar and the mustard cream and the green endive were just splashes of color on the plate. The visual experience was like dreaming of faraway summer while staring at Christmas lights through a frosty window. The third course brought to mind the first hot day of spring, when it's too warm to eat in the house so you sit outside with a dinner plate of Easter ham and corn on your lap and a bottle of Coca-Cola sweating beside you. Zoey could feel the excitement of summer coming, and she couldn't wait for it. And then summer arrived with the final course. And, like summer always is, it was worth the wait. The tiny container looked like a miniature milk glass, and the whipped milk in it reminded her of cold, sweet soft-serve ice cream on a day when the pavement burns through flip-flops and even shade trees are too hot to sit under. The savory bits of crispy cornbread mixed in gave the dessert a satisfying campfire crunch.

She had drawn intricate patterns around the edges of the paper. Heart-shaped petals formed into flowers, and paisley curlicues formed into leaves, all of which connected to look like lace. It was similar to the designs he'd seen decorating Charlotte's skin over the years. He opened the box and lifted out a glass ball. He held it up and saw tiny glass threads inside that reminded him of strings of batter falling from a spoon.

You don't believe in ghosts?" Zoey asked, surprised. "What about your witch balls?" "That's just a story. Real life is scary enough.

Zoey had later found a few of her mother's things mistakingly tangled in her own---a pair of lavender-colored leather gloves, a twisted and knotted gold bracelet, and a tube of saucy red lipstick, the color of which was called Bye Bye Birdie.

He was at an age now where the people he’d once known outnumbered the people he presently knew.

The desk in front of Frasier was littered with sketchbooks and colored pencils. Drawing was a medium he'd taken up later in life and all he drew was birds, over and over, usually in the heat of the day when it was too hot to be in the garden. The wall in front of him was covered in sketches of the dellawisps, so many of them the papers overlapped, forming a decoupage of turquoise birds.

Frasier stepped in and reached for a wall switch. A crystal light fixture popped on, raining down variegated light. The building revealed itself to be like a geode---rocky on the outside but sparkling with unexpected decadence inside. It was small, just one room. The furniture was covered with white sheets, but everything else she could see was lovely---the golden parquet floor, the whitewashed rafters, and the long kitchen counter on the far wall, which sported kitschy, pale pink appliances.

His shoulder muscles began to bunch the closer he got to the gate. He'd felt this way every day coming home from school when he was younger. Talking with his therapist at college had helped him understand that it hadn't actually been dread he'd been feeling... It had been hope. Hope that, somehow things would be different. Every single day that hope had buoyed him, and then sunk him.

As the trolley pulled back in front of the building on Trade Street about an hour after it had left, Charlotte thought she understood why she loved this place so much, too, why it spoke so strongly to her, and probably Zoey, and countless others. Mallow Island had reinvented itself over and over. And just like the candy itself, no one here had to be made up of what they used to.

Children, dont hold on to old love so hard you forget to live. Old love isn’t the only love you’ll ever have. And I can tell you from this side that it never really goes away, anyway.

Mac’s Tahoe smelled like clean aftershave mixed with something fried, like from the restaurant kitchen. It was exactly what a hug from a chef would smell like.

It looked like someone's grandmothers house, that it might smell like sugar cookies and Rose Milk lotion inside.

Zoey understood that mothering was in the details you never saw. And the lack of it was the things you always noticed.

The humid air almost had a texture to it, and was unusually still. God is holding his breath.

He was at an age now where the people he'd once known outnumbered the people he presently knew.

They were funny little thieves. Most people thought they were a nuisance, but he enjoyed them. It had taken him all his life to understand this, but even unlikable things have worth.