Sublime

was great hatred, the great Seventies hatred.

Her

The hormones—they were a possession all their own.

somewhere her daughter belonged, somewhere safe from aspiration. It was better to build your life’s ceiling low.

turgid

hale

Friends smirked. The childless ones, underexposed so far. The old loners. The selfish mates who perfected hobbies and tended their own interests instead of turning over their lives to what Claire called a stewardship of the small and crazy. For a while they were fine. Just for a while.

The Hathaways were an unworldly lot, eccentric and cheerful and preoccupied with books and art and music. They lived in a ramshackle cottage, but instead of repairing door frames or holes in the ceiling, they pruned roses and wrote poetry. If a chair leg broke off, they merely wedged a stack of books beneath it. Their priorities bewildered him.

inchoately