Sarah Addison Allen

There was a sense of tightness in the room now, filling the space. Attraction was like that. It filled. It poured into you like batter into a pan, sticking to the sides.

Summer was a lady who didn't give up her spotlight easily.

Those stories were the sound track of my summer with you.

The outside world might have finally turned into autumn, but inside the Waverley house it still smelled of summer. It was lemon verbena day, so the house was filled with a sweet-tart that conjured images of picnic blankets and white clouds like true-love hearts.

...everyone knows that road, the one leading out of town into a deep green expanse of pastures and old farmhouses, which at first makes it seem like you're entering a fairy tale, something sweet and old fashioned and lost in time. But, like all fairy tales, the beginning is always beautiful, a ruse to draw you into something you aren't anticipating.

She did know that it's remarkably easy to fall in love with someone who is already in love with you. It's a little like falling in love with yourself.

When Josey woke up and saw the feathery frost on her windowpane, she smiled. Finally, it was cold enough to wear long coats and tights. It was cold enough for scarves and shirts worn in layers, like camouflage. It was cold enough for her lucky red cardigan, which she swore had a power of its own. She loved this time of year. Summer was tedious with the light dresses she pretended to be comfortable in while secretly sure she looked like a loaf of white bread wearing a belt. The cold was such a relief.

When you have to do something, you have to do it. Putting it off only makes it worse. Believe me, I know.

Did you get rid of that sweater like I asked?""Yes, Mother," Josey said."I wasn't trying to be mean the other day. It just doesn't look good on you.""Yes, Mother," Josey said.The truth was, that sweater, that color, looked good on her daughter. And every time she wore it, it hinted at something that scared Margaret.Josey was growing into her beauty.Margaret watched Josey leave.She used to be a beautiful woman, the most beautiful woman around.She brought out the photo again.But that was forever ago.

It was like the way you wanted sunshine on Saturdays, or pancakes for breakfast. They just made you feel good.

Life is about experience... You can't hold on to everything

He fell in love with a skinny stray cat that would skulk around the dining hall during meals. Every day, Jake would offer it sausage or egg from breakfast and pepperoni or hamburger from lunch. Every day, it ran away from him. But Jake didn__ give up. Even when he had the stomach flu, he snuck out of the infirmary to try to feed it. He was not going to let it down. He would watch it from classroom windows. He even made up a poem about it that he sent home to his mother in a letter. Three months later, the little cat was finally hungry enough to trust him. It never occurred to Jake that the cat...

Most locals knew who Della Lee was. She waitressed at a greasy spoon called Eat and Run, which was tucked far enough outside the town limits that the ski-crowd tourists didn__ see it. She haunted bars at night. She was probably in her late thirties, maybe ten years older than Josey, and she was rough and flashy and did whatever she wanted__o reasonable explanation required. __ella Lee Baker, what are you doing in my closet?_ __ou shouldn__ leave your window unlocked. Who knows who could get in?_ Della Lee said, single-handedly debunking the long-held belief that if you dotted your...

Josey?_ She heard her mother__ voice in the hall, then the thud of her cane as she came closer. __lease don__ tell her I__ here,_ the woman in the closet said, with a strange sort of desperation. Despite the cold outside, she was wearing a cropped white shirt and tight dark blue jeans that sat low, revealing a tattoo of a broken heart on her hip. Her hair was bleached white-blond with about an inch of silver-sprinkled dark roots showing. Her mascara had run and there were black streaks on her cheeks. She looked drip-dried, like she__ been walking in the rain, though there hadn__...

Her hair was longer than it used to be, and it veiled her shoulders like a shawl. She used it for protection. If there was one thing Sydney knew, it was hair. She loved beauty school and loved working in the salon in Boise. Hair said more about people than they knew, and Sydney understood the language naturally.

Josey shook her head, thinking, if Della Lee were a candy, she would be a SweeTart. Not the hard kind that broke your teeth, the chewy kind, the kind you had to work on and mull over, your eyes watering and your lips turning up into a smile you didn't want to give.

Motherhood, true motherhood, was what went on when no one else could see.

Motherhood is hard enough without judgement from others who don't know the whole story.