Writing aspirations

“Forgive and forget.” “There isn’t even much to forgive. He was always clear about who he was. I was in denial.” Campbell tsks. “He didn’t love you, darling. What could be more necessary to forgive?”

He does not understand that he cannot understand, that the loves of others are unfathomable.

She seems distracted, the way Joan feels when Harry is away on a school trip and part of her tries to follow him clairvoyantly through his day, probing the ether for any sign of distress.

Holding it at the end of one outstretched arm, she maneuvers onto her back again, then expels a cloud of smoke. The arm comes down to her mouth in a graceful curve, a swan’s neck bending to feed.

Since her conversation with Harry, she has felt painfully alert, both vulnerable and dangerous, as though she were wrapped in explosives.

But she does not expect him to say, immediately, forcefully, champagne flute in one hand, “He is mine, this boy.” “No,” she says, claustrophobic, trying to breathe, “he’s mine.”