Summer Island

As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beating of my heart. I cannot now imagine a life without her.

A daughter without her mother is a woman broken. It is a loss that turns to arthritis and settles deep into her bones.

She remembered how it had felt and tasted, that slowly descending depression, like a thick glass jar that closed around you, sucking away the air you needed to breathe, creating a barrier between you and the world. The hell of it was that she'd been able to see all that she was missing, but when she'd reached out, all she'd touched was cold, hard glass.

Caro: "Bite me." Ruby: "I gave that up in kindergarten.

The heat made people crazy. They woke from their damp bedsheets and went in search of a glass of water, surprised to find that when their vision cleared, they were holding instead the gun they kept hidden in the bookcase.

The measure of a society is its compassion.

A WOMAN'S PLACE IS IN THE HOUSE...AND THE SENATE.

No matter how dark a place is, there are always moments of light.

She pouted prettily, and he wondered if that was one of the things they taught wealthy young girls at schools like Miss Porter's. If not, it had been passed down from one generation to another as carefully as the secret of fire.

There’s no substitute for talking to the people you love. Thinking about them, dreaming about them, wishing things were different

I went in search of my mother’s life, and found my own.

She collected grudges and heartaches the way she’d once collected Barbies, never sharing, never abandoning.

Ruby understood. She wouldn't have a week ago, but now she did. You won't break. She halted, thinking. It was important that she phrase it well, that she pass on something of what she'd learned about this family of theirs. You think you have to hold it all in, and if you let any of it go, you'll shatter into tiny pieces and you won't know who you are. But it doesn't work that way. It's more like ... opening your eyes in a room you'd expected to be dark. You can see things, and it makes you feel stronger. She laughed. God I sound like Obi-wan on heroin. Jeez Rube, Caroline said, sniffling a little. My little sister has finally grown up.

The waters of the past were as cold as she'd expected, even in the heat of this gorgeous summer morning.

And when we let the media choose our heroes for us, we are lost already.

I’d always believed that the truth of a person was easily spotted, a line drawn in dark ink on white paper. Now, I wonder. Maybe the truth of who we are lies hidden in all those shades of gray that everyone talks about.

Shadows crept along the ground like slowly seeping India ink, moved up the sides of the house, and slipped through the slats on the picket fence. Sunset tinted the sky purple and pink.

Now, she listens and agrees, and then goes on, talking about the gift of mistakes and the miracle of family. She hopes that people will learn from her bad choices. And she wraps that spell around them, the one only she can spin, and by the end of the show, her listeners are reaching for tissues and thinking about how to find their way back to their own families. The smart ones are reaching for the telephone.

In that quiet, Ruby heard the echo of a broken family; they were individual pieces, now separate, wanting a wholeness that had been shattered.

Vietnam...war...it did something to us. Or maybe not. Maybe the bad seeds were always in me, and war gave them a dark place in which to grow.

A generous donor (who had no doubt lived a life that imperiled his mortal soul) had granted [the Sisters] more than one hundred waterfront acres.

Can you let yourself jump without a net? Because that’s what love is, what faith is. You’re looking for a guarantee, and those come with auto parts. Not love.

I finally learned that life is not made up of BIG moments and sudden epiphanies, but rather of tiny bits of time, some so small they pass by unnoticed.

Love is nothing without faith. I lost that faith a long time ago. Of course you did. And you're right to blame your dad and me for it, but that doesn't matter anymore-whose fault it is. What matters is you. Can you let yourself jump without a net? Because that's what love is, what faith is. You're looking for a a guarantee, and those come with auto parts. Not love.

He pulled back and slowly got to his feet. We've all been carrying this baggage for too long. Some of us have tried to go on. He looked at her. And some of us have refused to. But all of us are hurting. I'm your father. She's your mother - whatever she's done or hasn't done, or said or hasn't said - she a part of you and you're a part of her. Don't you see that you can't be whole without her?

The minute he saw her, he understood what had been missing from his life. It was hokey, he knew, and sentimental and sappy, but that didn't make it any less true. What he'd been longing for, without even realizing it, had been that elusive, magical mixture of friendship and passion that he'd only ever found with her.