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81 " She had been his first love, so maybe, in a way, she had the rightful claim to his heart. Maybe it was like how when you stepped out of the grocery store line to grab bread, no one could really be mad when you returned to your spot. It wasn't cutting if you had been there before. "
― Brit Bennett , The Mothers
82 " Two years of school, which discouraged him, but Aubrey said the time would pass anyway-why not spend it chasing after something he wanted? "
83 " Her days felt like being handed from person to person like a baton, her calculus teacher passing her to her Spanish teacher to her chemistry teacher to her friends and back home to her parents. Then one day, her mother's hand was gone and she'd fallen, clattering to the floor. "
84 " At home, loss was everywhere; she could barely see past it, like trying to look out a windowpane covered in fingerprints. She would always feel trapped behind that window, between her and the rest of the world, but at least in Ann Arbor, the glass was clearer. Whenever "
85 " There was something freeing in admitting that you had been loved less. She might have gone her whole life not knowing, thinking that she was enjoying a feast when she had actually been picking at another's crumbs. "
86 " Oh girl, we have known littlebit love. That littlebit of honey left in an empty jar that traps the sweetness in your mouth long enough to mask your hunger. We have run tongues over teeth to savor that last littlebit as long as we could, and in all our living, nothing has starved us more. — "
87 " how small she’d looked next to the size of her wanting. “You "
88 " She started to cry. His clumsy hands cupped her face and he kissed her wet cheeks, her jaw, her forehead. He buried his face in her neck, wanting to keep her in her skin. "
89 " We don’t think of ourselves as “prayer warriors.” A man must’ve come up with that term—men think anything difficult is war. But prayer is more delicate than battle, especially intercessory prayer. More than just a notion, taking up the burdens of someone else, often someone you don’t even know. You close your eyes and listen to a request. Then you have to slip inside their body. "
90 " For once in her life, she wanted an ended thing to end cleanly. The "
91 " Monique and Kasey’s love for Aubrey hung in their eyes, and even though it wasn’t meant for Nadia, she inched closer, holding her hands up to the warmth. "
92 " Who wanted to be that type of wife? Afraid to leave her married home, like if she left her life for a few days, it might not remain once she returned. "
93 " In her bed, she believed the impossible. She felt herself growing younger, her skin softer and tighter, her mind unfilling with the textbooks she’d read. Luke uncrippled, unswallowing aspirin by the palmfuls. Unloving Aubrey. He kissed Nadia and she felt untouched, their baby unforming inside of her, their lives separating. "
94 " She had always seemed a little strange to us anyway—dreamy, like her mind was a balloon on a long string and she forgot to reel it in sometimes. "
95 " I love you,” he whispered one afternoon, his fingers stroking her stomach, and she wondered if he was speaking to her at all or the ghost of the child they’d made. Could you ever truly unlove a child, even one you never knew? Or did that love transform into something else? "
96 " All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season. But we didn't. "
97 " We’ve seen what this world has to offer. We’re scared of what it wants. — "
98 " But we were girls once, which is to say, we have all loved an ain’t-shit man. No Christian way of putting it. There are two types of men in the world: men who are and men who ain’t about shit. As "
99 " Maybe the beach was a more natural place to leave a baby you couldn't care for. Nestle him in the sand and hope someone found him -- an old couple on a midnight stroll, a patrol cop sweeping his flashlight over beer cases. But if they didn't, if no one stumbled upon him, he'd return to his first home, an ocean like the one inside of her. Water would break onto the shore, sweep him up in its arms, and rock him back to sleep. "
100 " Then she disappeared around the corner, and as quickly as we’d seen her, she was gone. We will never know why she returned, but we still think about her. We see the span of her life unspooling in colorful threads and we chase it, wrapping it around our hands as more tumbles out. She’s her mother’s age now. Double her age. Our age. You’re our mother. We’re climbing inside of you. "