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The Heat Made People Crazy. They Woke From Their Damp Bedsheets And Went In Search Of A Glass Of Water, Surprised To Find That When Their Vision Cleared, They Were Holding Instead The Gun They Kept Hidden In The Bookcase.

-Kristin Hannah

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The Heat Made People

Kristin Hannah

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The Heat Made People Crazy. They Woke From Their Damp Bedsheets And Went In Search Of A Glass Of Water, Surprised To Find That When Their Vision Cleared, They Were Holding Instead The Gun They Kept Hidden In The Bookcase.

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To Lose Love Is A Terrible Thing. But To Turn Away From It Is Unbearable. Will You Spend The Rest Of Your Life Replaying It In Your Head? Wondering If You Walked Away Too Soon Or Too Easily? Or If You'll Ever Love Anyone That Deeply Again?

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If She Wasn't Careful, She'd Slide Without A Ripple Into The Gently Flowing Stream Of Her Old Life, Pulled Back Under The Current Without A Wimper Of Protest. Another Housewife Lost In The Flow.

I Have Often Wished In The Past Few Years That My Mom Were Here To Help Me As I Raised My Own Teenage Son. As A Girl, With My Own Mom, I Thought I Knew It All; Now I Know Better. Somewhere, I Know My Mom Is Smiling.

...this Fear Was Unbearable. It Unwrapped Who She Was, As Neatly As He'd Unwound Her Bandage, Leaving Too Much Pain And Ugliness Exposed. Nerve Endings; He'd Said They Were The Problem [causing Phantom Pain In The Amputated Limb]." Things That Cut Off, That Ended Abruptly Or Died--like Parents And Marriages--kept Hurting Forever.

They Would Always Be A Family, But If She'd Learned Anything In The Past Few Weeks It Was That A Family Wasn't A Static Thing. There Were Always Changes Going On. Like With Continents, Sometimes The Changes Were Invisible And Underground, And Sometimes They Were Explosive And Deadly. The Trick Was To Keep Your Balance. You Couldn't Control The Direction Of Your Family Any More Than You Could Stop The Continental Shelf From Breaking Apart. All You Could Do Was Hold On For The Ride.

Then He Left Her There, Standing Alone, Surrounded By Word Ghosts; Things She Could Have Said.

This Is The Problem With Forever Friends. They Know Too Much.

From The First Time We Met, We Knew Everything That Mattered About Each Other, Didn't We? We Just Knew. I Guess That's What Best Friends Are: Parts Of Each Other.

We Can't Live Other People's Lives For Them. Even If We Love Them.

Memories Are Who We Are. In The End, That's All The Luggage You Take With You. Love And Memories Are What Last.

Of Course You Can Fall In Love. You Just Have To Let Yourself. They Don't Call It Falling For Nothing. -kate

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I Always Thought It Was What I Wanted: To Be Loved And Admired. Now I Think Perhaps I'd Like To Be Known.

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She Had Been Ready To Love This Man From The Moment She First Saw Him. In All These Years, That Had Never Changed. They'd Hurt Each Other, Let Each Other Down, And Yet, Here They Were After Everything, Together. She Needed Him Now, Needed Him To Remind Her That She Was Live, That She Wasn't Alone, That She Hadn't Lost Everything.

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Promises Were A Lot Like Impressions. The Second One Didn't Count For Much.

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It Occurred To Her Suddenly, Sharply, That She Wanted To Be In Love... She Wanted Not To Feel So Damned Alone In The World.

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That Was What A Best Friend Did: Hold Up A Mirror And Show You Your Heart.

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I Didn't Know How...deep Love Ran, How It Was In Your Blood, Not Your Heart, And How That Same Blood Pumped Through Your Veins Your Whole Life.

Time Goes Too Quickly. This Is The Advice That My Mother Should Have Given Me From Her Hospital Bed. Instead Of Vague, Unknowable Quips Like "be Careful What You Wish For," She Should Have Told Me Time Slides Away On A Hillside Of Loose Shale And Takes Everything In Its Path - Dreams, Opportunities, Hopes. And Youth. It Takes That Fastest Of All.

Oh, Mia. You Haven’t Even Begun To Find Out Who You Really Are, And, Believe Me, Other Boys Are Going To Fall In Love With You. If A Guy Can’t See How Special You Are, He Isn’t Good Enough For You.

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She Is Like A Child Picking At A Scab, Unable To Stop Herself Even Though She Knows It Will Hurt.

Thoughts - Even Fears - Were Airy Things, Formless Until You Made Them Solid With Your Voice And Once Given That Weight, They Could Crush You.

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She Still Felt Shell-shocked By All Of It, Numb. Beneath The Numbness, Though, Was A Raw And Terrible Anger That Was Unlike Anything She'd Felt Before. She Had So Little Experience With Genuine Anger That It Scared Her. She Actually Worried That If She Started Screaming, She'd Never Stop.

Marriages Go Through Hard Times. Sometimes You Have To Get In There And Fight For Your Love. That's The Only Way For It To Get Better.

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Before This Trip And All That She'd Learned About The Three Of Them, She Would Have Gotten Angry Or Changed The Subject. Anything To Obscure The Pain She Felt. Now She Knew Better. You Carried Your Pain With You In Life. There Was No Outrunning It.

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You Look Great," He Said. It Made Her Smile, Even If It Was A Lie. "i'm As Big As A House." He Laughed. "i Like Houses. In Fact, I'm Thinking About Architecture As A Career.

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Sometimes Being A Good Friend Means Saying Nothing.

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She Waited For You In A Thousand Different Ways.

It Had Been Years Since She Question His Fidelity, But He'd Stepped On To The Old Fame Track Again, And That Was Where The Road Had Taken Them Before. Infidelity Could Be Forgiven, But Forgetting It Was Impossible. Strangely, That Wasn't What Bothered Her The Most. What Bothered Her Was That She Didn't Really Care.

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And Before You Barrel Through Some Idiotic Cosmo Girl List Of How-well-do-you-know-your-man Questions, Let Me Say That I Don't Know Squat About Him Except That He Kisses Like A God And Screws Like A Devil.

The Heat Made People Crazy. They Woke From Their Damp Bedsheets And Went In Search Of A Glass Of Water, Surprised To Find That When Their Vision Cleared, They Were Holding Instead The Gun They Kept Hidden In The Bookcase.

Girls Like You Can't Understand," Julia Said, And It Was True. Ellie Had Been Popular. She Didn't Know That Some Hurts Were Like A Once-broken Bone. In The Right Weather, They Could Ache For A Lifetime.

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Honestly, When You Start Talking About Genres, You're Talking As Much About The Business Side Of Writing As Anything Else. Certainly There Are Elements Of Reader Expectation That Play Into Various Genres, And Those Are Important, But It Also Becomes About Packaging, Placement, Audience....in The End, I'm Not A Fan Of Labels. I Think The Best Fiction Blurs The Boundaries Between Genres, Stretches And Breaks Them.

Honestly, I Believe That The Mother-daughter Relationship Is Magical, Complex, Potentially Dangerous, Profoundly Powerful, And Deeply Transformative. To Put It Simply, All Of Us Have This Relationship, And In A Very Real Way, "none Of Us Comes Out Alive." We Are All Formed First As Daughters And Then Tested As Mothers. There's Nothing Like Motherhood To Make Us Reassess How We Were As Daughters.

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Stacey: "i'm Surprised You Haven't Thrown Me Out." Comfort: "at Your Current Weight, I'd Need Some Sort Of Catapult.

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And Maybe That Was How It Was Supposed To Be...joy And Sadness Were Part Of The Package; The Trick, Perhaps,was To Let Yourself Feel All Of It, But To Hold On To The Joy Just A Little More Tightly.

But Sometimes One Person Can Hold You Up In Life, Keep You Standing, And Without That Hand To Hold, You Can Find Yourself Free-falling No Matter How Strong You Used To Be, No Matter How Hard You Try To Remain Steady.

It Was The Magic Hour, The Moment In Time When Every Leaf And Blade Of Grass Seemed To Separate, When Sunlight, Burnished By The Rain And Softened By The Coming Night, Gave The World An Impossibly Beautiful Glow.

That Was The One Thing She Knew Now. Some Chances Came And Went, And If You Missed Them, You Could Spend The Rest Of Your Life Standing Alone, Waiting For An Opportunity That Had Already Passed You By.

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The Falling Apart Of A Man's Life Should Make More Noise. It Should Startle Passesrby With Its Sturm And Drang. It Ought To Sound Like The Parthenon Crashing Down. Not This Ordinary, Everyday Kind Of Quiet...he Closed His Eyes...and Still It Was Quiet, This Falling Apart Of His Life, As Silent As The Last Beat Of An Old Man's Heart. A Quiet, Echoing Thud, And Then...nothing.

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Alice Started To Cry. It Came With No Sound, No Shuddering, No Childlike Hysterics, Just A Soul-deep Release That Turned Into Moisture And Dripped Down Her Puffy Pink Cheeks. She Touched Her Tears, Frowning. Then She Looked Up At Julia And Whimpered Two Words Before She Fell Asleep. ‘real Hurts.’

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He Was Afraid That The Secrets She'd Kept Would Always Be Here, Inside Him, An Ugly Malignant Thing Lodged Near Enough To His Heart To Upset Its Rhythm, And Though It Could Be Removed, Cut Out, There Would Always Be Scars; Bits And Pieces Of It Would Remain In His Blood, Making It Wrong Somehow, So That If He Accidentally Sliced His Skin Open, His Blood Would--for One Heartbeat--flow As Black As India Ink Before It Remembered That It Should Be Red.

Caro: "bite Me." Ruby: "i Gave That Up In Kindergarten.

And No One Drank Just One Shot Of Tequila.

Fifteen Minutes Later, Betsy Came Thundering Down The Stairs. "i'm Going To The Mall With Sierra To See A Movie." Michael Leaned Forward, Switched Off The Television. "can You Please Rephrase That In The Form Of A Question?" "sure. Can I Have Some Money?

Popularity Means People Think They Know You.

She Used To Tell Me That She Couldn't Feel The Sunlight Anymore, Not Even When She Was Standing In It, Not Even When It Was Hot On Her Cheeks

No Mother. Two Small Words, And Yet Within Them Lay A Bottomless Well Of Pain And Loss, A Ceaseless Mourning For Touches That Were Never Received And Words Of Wisdom That Were Never Spoken. No Single Word Was Big Enough To Adequately Describe The Loss Of Your Mother.

I Prefer To Scare Myself In The Ordinary Ways, Daddy. Like Letting My Children Cross The Country For College. Why Bungee Jump When You Can Put A Kindergartener On A School Bus? Now, That's Real Terror.

Maybe Time Didn't Heal Wounds Exactly, But It Gave You A Kind Of Armor, Or A New Perspective. A Way To Remember With A Smile Instead Of A Sob.

Real Friends. The Kind That Don't Purposely Hurt Your Feelings Or Stop Liking You For No Reason.

Finding Your Passion Isn't Just About Careers And Money. It's About Finding Your Authentic Self. The One You've Buried Beneath Other People's Needs.

Nothing Was Easier To Shatter Than The Fragile Shield Of An Idealist.

Goddamn, Sometimes It Hurt To Be Free.

Their Friendship Was More Important Than Any Relationship. Guys Would Come And Go; Girlfriends Were Forever.

I Can Be A Little Ocd When It Comes To My Writing.

At One Point, She'd Wanted To Hurl The Whole Breakfast At The Wall. And Then She'd Remember Why It Was That Men Had Temper Tantrums And Women Didn't: Cleanup.

I Might Screw Up, I Might Embarrass You, I Might Yell At You, But I Will Never, Ever Stop Loving You. You're My First Born. The First Time I Held You... I Fell In Love So Hard It Cracked My Bones.

I Know About Forgiving People And Loving Them Anyway, Even After They Hurt You.

What I Know Now About Life Is This: Your Mother Is A Part Of Everything You Do And Everything You Are.

I Guess No One Stays Friends For More Than Thirty Years Without Broken Hearts Along The Way.

It’s A Promise Ring,” He Said Solemnly. “the Lady At The Store Said It’s What You Give The Girl You Love. It Means I Want To Marry You Someday.

It Was True; Always Had Been. Friendships Were Like Marriages In That Way. Routines And Patterns Were Poured Early And Hardened Like Cement.

Nobody's Strong Enough To Be A Parent. We Just Do It, Blindly, Going Forward On Faith And Love And Hope. That's All It Is...being Afraid...and Going On.

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