WINGATE, Lisa - Before We Were Yours

Before We Were Yours

By Lisa Wingate

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

pg. 3

Outside, the breeze is weary, and the cicadas throb in the tall trees, their verdant hiding places just below the window frames.

Pg. 3

In my multi-fold years of life, I have learned that most people get along as best they can. They don't intend to hurt anyone. It is merely a terrible byproduct of surviving.

Pg.8

I do anything for him, but I hope it's many more years before we're forced to reverse the roles of parent and child. I've learned how hard that is while watching my father struggle to make decisions for his mother.

Pg. 8

We are heartsick about where this cruel descent into dementia might end. Before we moved her to the nursing home, my grandmother escaped from her caretaker and her household staff. She called a cab and vanished for an entire day only to find they be found wandering in a business complex that was once her favorite shopping mall. How she managed this when she can't remember our names is a mystery.

Pg. 10

Anger and blame are powerful weapons.

Pg. 10

Technically, they've known him longer than I have, and they are almost as devoted.

pg. 11

This is what it's possible when love is real and strong, when people are devoted to one another, when those sacrifice anything to be together. This is what I want for myself, but I sometimes wonder if it's possible for our modern generation. We're so distracted so... busy.

Pg. 14

On occasion, it is as if the latches in my mind have gone rusty and worn. The doors fall open and close at will.

Pg. 22

There's such a sense if recognition there. She's certain she knows who I am. 

For a second, I want to be Fern, just to make her happy -

Pg. 24

...rolling her eyes to let me know that, while this little joke may have been cute when she was nine, it's lame now that she has officially reached the double digits.

Pg. 26

One of the best things a father can do for his daughter is to let her know that she has met his expectations. My father did that for me, and no amount of effort on my part can ever repay the debt.

Pg. 32

I remember May Crandall's blue eyes, the way she regarded me with such desperation.

Pg. 32

I'm still thinking about May Crandall and remembering the plethora of newspaper stories about nursing home abuse. Perhaps I just wanted to make sure that May didn't come to me because she is in some so sort of trouble.

Pg. 36

Only Camellia would use something like that to try to get her way. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

Pg. 36

Queenie begged Bring to go up to the shore and take care of the body, but Bring wouldn't. We got the kids to think about, Queen, he said. No tellin' who did that to him or who's watchin'. We best get on down the river.

Pg. 37

Camillia's eaten enough soap to clean up the inside of a whale in her ten years. She's practically been raised on it. It's a wonder bubbles don't pour out her ears.

Pg. 54

"Well, good mornin' to you, Miss Rosy Ray a' Sunshine." Zede calls Camellia that all the time on account of she's the exact opposite of that very thing.

Pg. 57

"Be glad if you got a nice Mama and Daddy." Silas looks hard at her. "Don't ever get it in your head to leave them behind, if they're good to you. Some sure enough ain't."

Pg. 78

From behind the iron fence, boys and girls of all sizes watch. Not a single one smiles. 

Pg. 79

"Aren't they a pitiful lot?" Miss Tann says. "I do believe we removed them just in time."

Pg. 92

"It's kinda creepy, Aunt Aves. Nobody's there, but all Grandma Judy's stuff is still around."

Pg. 93

Blunt- force grief strikes me as I pull into the drive and step from the car. Everywhere I look, there's a memory.

Pg. 93

The floorboards crackle beneath me, and I jump, even though it's an old familiar sound.

Pg. 94

Never week passed that she didn't care for a document that details of her days, keeping track of everyone she saw, what she wore, what was served at meals. 

Pg. 94

"Someday you'll read these and know all my secrets," she told me once when I asked her why she was so meticulous about writing everything down.

Pg. 96

"Not the slightest bit of doubt." Did she really feel that way? Did you really just... know it was right when she met my grandfather? 

Pg. 112

She's a pillar of the community and a fixture at the Methodist church. She would never, ever keep a secret from the family. Unless that secret is something that could hurt us.  And that's exactly what scares me.

Pg. 161

But when Granddad learned he'd been lied to all of his life, that was the last straw. He joined the army the next day and never talk to his adoptive parents again. He looked for his birth family for years but never found them.

Pg. 260

Instantly, I'm back in the thick of it. I smell pipe tobacco, old newspaper clippings, dried-out bulletin boards, peeling paint, faded photos.

Pg. 316

I always wondered what he might have become. Perhaps it was for the best that I never knew. I was growing into a different life, different world, different name.

Pg. 316

May's story had made Arney and Silas and all the people of the river real to me.

Pg. 317

People don't come into our lives by accident.

Pg. 317

A woman's past need not predict her future. She can dance to new music if she chooses.