Summary:
Now living in Missoula, Montana with Christopher, Susana is married. Together they eloped and this infuriated her mother. She said Sue knew how much Penelope (sister) wanted to be her bridesmaid. Sue and Christopher were careful. They adapted to the pause in their lovemaking for birth control but shockingly a pregnancy test came back positive. What would she do? She'd never had the responsibilty of taking care of herself, and now she could possibly be held responsible for another's life. Her mom had two children and five miscarriages which was a guide to expect the same thing to happen to her. They had three days to decide whether they wanted to keep the child or move forward with the abortion because adoption wasn't an option for them. In the end they decided to go forward with the abortion. Susana was upset with Christopher because it wasn't as difficult for him seeing that he didn't have to go through the whole process like her. Once again Sue became pregnanat but this time Christopher was ready to be a father. She'd began a post-abortion support group at Planned Parenthood. A couple months later she gave birth to a baby boy, Daniel. About two years later she gave birth to Jack. Towards the end of the book she goes through some things her mother gave her and read them. She called some of the men that her mother messed with. She asked Martin, a boy that told her that he had sex with her mother when they were suppose to be out buying champagne. He told her that wasn't true, that her mother just told him to tell her that. She then reflected on how she didn't go to her mother's bedside. Sue's mom was no longer sick and she went back to Barbados. Her and Penelope hasn't talked since the day she told her she wasn't going but met with each other after she came back. They argued and wasn't able to solve anything so Sue just left. She visited her father and the next day she flew back home to be with her family.
Quote:
"We liked to do things this way: pushed into some hole of privacy and hard sorrow, we could emerge with a decision, a start at something better.When Christopher's father fell from the tree he was pruning and severly injured his head, we returned from the solemn hostpital vigil and decided to move in together. When he took a turn for the worse, we got the dog. We were drifting off from others, using our discrete griefs to build our life together. You could trust sorrow, straightforward and undiluted, and people left you alone. To us it was love."
Reflection:
I'm not even sure I'm able to describe how much that quote stood out to me when I was reading. To be honest, I was beginning to fall asleep when I was reading but when I caught that quote I gave this book my undivided attention. If I were to handle situations this way, how would my life be? Would my attention even be taken away from any grievances I've faced growing up. That could be the start of a healthy relationship in my opinion because when you let grieve get the best of you, it brings you down and makes it hard for you to build. I'm starting to become a firm believer that you are able to trust sorrow after hearing it be put that way. This should be something everyone considers when going through sorrowful situation.
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