it comes to that? So what?” “Let me tell you something,” says my mother. “Those are two of the most powerful words in the English language. Right between them is a free and happy life.”

I need to make money. I need to write today. I need to clean the bathroom. I need to eat something. I need to quit sugar. I need to cut my hair. I need to call Verizon. I need to savor the moment. I need to find the library card. I need to learn to meditate. I need to try harder. I need to get that stain out. I need to find better health insurance.

She always said that a building should be two parts contentment, one part desire. Cleo had never understood what that meant, but now the phrase returned to her like a prophesy. Two parts contentment, one part desire. It seemed a good formula for living, though one she had not mastered yet.

but he recognized that each family functioned with its own impenetrable logic, so he resisted the urge to say anything.

‘Wherever you are going, it is waiting for you.’

They just don’t feel they have to do the tap dance, you know? They don’t have to prove themselves all the time to be loved. Because they always were.” Cleo smiled sadly. “But how do you stop tap dancing if you’re like us?” “I just got too tired, Cley,” he

“Pinch, punch, first of the month!”

When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light. Now she had completed that process on her own. She had met the darkest part of herself and created this.

Eleanor got this version of Frank, the sober, thoughtful man who took her suggestions, while Cleo had endured the drunken predecessor like a fool.