“Coming back last time to the house she grew up in, Isabel had been reminded of the darkness that had descended with her brothers' deaths, how loss had leaked all over her mother's life like a stain. As a fourteen-year-old,… — M.L. Stedman Copy Share
“There had never been guarantee that conception would lead to a live birth, or that birth would lead to a life of any great length. Nature allowed only the fit and the lucky to share this paradise-in-the-making. Look inside the… — M.L. Stedman Copy Share Image
“He traced the constellations as they slid their way across the roof of the world from dusk till dawn. The precision of it, the quiet orderliness of the stars, gave him a sense of freedom. There was nothing he was going through that the stars had not seen before, somewhere, some time on this earth. Given enough time, their memory… — M.L. Stedman Copy Share
“You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the… — M.L. Stedman Copy Share Image
“Putting down the burden of the lie has meant giving up the freedom of the dream.” — M.L. Stedman Copy Share Image
“Tom thought back to the imposing, empty house: to the silence that deadened every room with a subtly different pitch; to the kitchen smelling of carbolic, kept spotless by a long line of housekeepers. He remembered that dreaded smell of Lux flakes, and his distress as he saw the handkerchief, washed and starched by Mrs Someone-or-other, who had discovered it… — M.L. Stedman Copy Share
“He must turn to something solid, because if he didn't, who knew where his mind or his soul could blow away to, like a balloon without ballast… He raised the binoculars and scoured the island for more signs of life: he needed to see the goats, the sheep; to count them. Stick to the solid. To the brass fittings which… — M.L. Stedman Copy Share
“He struggles to make sense of it--all this love, so bent out of shape, refracted, like light through the lens.” — M.L. Stedman Copy Share Image
“Sometimes, you're the one who strikes it lucky. Sometimes, it's the other poor bastard who's left with the short straw, and you just have… — M.L. Stedman Copy Share Image
“The town draws a veil over certain events. This is a small community, where everyone knows that sometimes the contract to forget is as… — M.L. Stedman Copy Share Image
“Coming back last time to the house she grew up in, Isabel had been reminded of the darkness that had descended with her brothers' deaths, how loss had leaked all over her mother's life like a stain. As a fourteen-year-old, Isabel had searched the dictionary. She knew that if a wife lost a husband, there was a whole new word… — M.L. Stedman Copy Share
“Everything's ruined. Nothing can ever be put right." Tom rested a hand on hers. "We've put things right as well as we can. That's… — M.L. Stedman Copy Share Image
