—I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID, EVEN THOUGH I MEANT IT

 

 

COMMONWEALTH (part one)   /  Ann Patchett

 

 

“If there’s anything else I can fuck up today, you let me know, okay?”

 

Honestly, it was a wonderful thing to be needed by the person she most admired, to be told she was indispensable.

 

Franny and Leo didn’t talk about marriage, except sometimes sentimentally in bed, his hands spreading wide across her back, and even then, it was only to say how quickly they would have married had it not been for the future and the past. What they never spoke of was the prohibitive element in the present.

 

Franny was able to believe that the badgering came from a place of affection.

 

Their relationship was built on admiration and mutual disbelief.

 

Every page was muscle memory.

 

“Listen to me talking. I never talk like this.”

 

“Your guilt’s got nothing on my guilt. Your guilt isn’t even in the ballpark.”

 

There had been nothing in her life to equal the light of his attention.

 

And more than that, he had found her life meaningful when she could make no sense of it at all.

 

“If you don’t want to use the extra rooms, I suggest you close the doors.”

 

Franny felt a little ping, like someone had just shot her in the neck with a rubber band.

 

“No more company. Company’s the problem right now.”

 

Franny couldn’t help but believe that she had brought every discomfort she experienced down on herself.

 

If you think you’re going to find one thing that will be perfect for you, you’re going to spend your eightieth birthday reading the want ads.

 

The simple truth was that Franny couldn’t stand to be hated.

 

That was how the ball got rolling.

 

That was the moment: either Bert would hit his son, or he would not.

 

“Essentially you’re right. The kid put the nail in the tire.”

 

“It turns out a novel isn’t the worst place to hide things.”

 

She was shocked by how he had looked. Cancer really was the devil’s handshake.

 

The things you need are never there when you need them.

 

“There’s no protecting anyone. Keeping people safe is a story we tell ourselves.”

 

This was the pleasure of a long life: the way some things worked themselves out.

 

A different couple would make love now.

 

“Just participate in the fantasy, please.”