sibling-relationships

Wyatt told me once that if tenderness were a disease, I__ be terminal.

I don't feel the need to explain my actions to her. I don't clarify, I don't doubt, I don't worry. I don't tell her everything, not anymore, but I tell her more than anyone else, by far. I tell her as much as I can.

You know, I don__ think your brother dislikes you as much as you think. After all, he gave up a kingdom to stay with his family.

I__ proud of you, son,_ he said. __ guess it has finally sunk in that it__ important to stand up for yourself in this world.__ocky shook his head. __t__ more important to stand up for someone who can__ stand up for herself,_ he had answered.Rocky Ryan speaking with his father.

My mother says we__e supposed to make mistakes. That__ the way we learn._ Rocky Ryan in Bully At Ambush Corner.

Life is a chain of choices. Making the correct one is never easy.___hat__ for sure,_ agreed Rocky.__ut if we didn__ make difficult choices, right or wrong,_ said Mr. Veraldi, __e wouldn__ learn anything worth knowing." Rocky Ryan and his viola teacher, Mr. Veraldi, in Bully at Ambush Corner.

Often the right path is the one that may be hardest for you to follow. But the hard path is also the one that will make you grow as a human being.

Grow up, Bailey.""That is precisely what I'm doing," Bailey says. "I don't care if you don't understand that. Staying here won't make me happy. It will make you happy because you're insipid and boring, and an insipid, boring life is enough for you. It's not enough for me. It will never be enough for me. So I'm leaving. Do me a favor and marry someone who will take decent care of the sheep.

The four of them stand in the cockpit of the Misdemeanor as they motor from one town to another. They pass their house, which is not theirs any longer. Libby cuts the throttle, and they stall there in front of their sprawling memory. The four of them have come up for the closing; since all of them are owners, they all must be present to sign away this place. They have given most of the land to the Maine Preservation Society, and the house, they have sold to a family who promises not to tear the whole thing down, though they know that is a lie. The oak is yellow and peeks from behind the house. The glossy white windows of the great room look down upon them. It is cold and they all wear their foul-weather gear, bright-yellow slickers, except Gwen, in a red poncho to accommodate the swell of her belly. Libby keeps one hand on the tiller and the other she slips into Tom__ hand. He gives it a squeeze and then puts his arm around her. Danny moves from the stern to stand between Tom and Gwen. They all stand on the starboard side looking at the house. Libby and Tom, then Danny, his hand resting on his brother__ shoulder, and Gwen next to him, her arms crossed over her protruding belly, her hair long and dark hanging down her back. She is no longer a beacon, but a buoy in her poncho, red right returning. The sky is gray and low and promises a choppy ferry ride to the mainland, but there in the safe haven of the harbor it is calm and windless, and the house isn__ empty, but expectant. The flat water, dark green now, lies empty, the float pulled out the month before. Going from town dock to town dock, there is no need for a tender. There is no way for them to come ashore, even if they wanted to. A house like this is not supposed to exist now. It comes from another era. It is a ghost, like the schooners that sail through the thoroughfare every summer. It is an aberration, a figment. It is their great shingled memory.

Rose leaned against the bathroom door. Here it was _ her real life, the truth of who she was, barreling down on her like a bus with bad brakes. Here was the truth _ she wasn__ the kind of person Jim could fall in love with. She wasn__ what she__ made herself out to be _ a cheerful, uncomplicated girl, a normal girl with a happy, orderly life, a girl who wore pretty shoes and had nothing more pressing on her mind that whether ER was a rerun this week. The truth was in the exercise tape she didn__ have time to unwrap, let alone exercise to; the truth was her hairy legs and ugly underwear. Most of all, the truth was her sister, her gorgeous, messed-up, fantastically unhappy and astoundingly irresponsible sister.

Whoa, that's the kind of little sister I can dig!" said Edison."Yes, we're all alike," I said. "We cover for you, we lie for you, we take the heat for you. We clean up your messes and mollify our parents for you. We never fail to come across with undying adoration, whether or not you deserve it, and we can't take our lives as seriously as yours. We snuffle up the crumbs from your table on the rare occasions you notice we're alive.

She's my /sister./" He had no doubt that Clarisse was telling the truth: that Darri was down here in the caves, that she was trying to end the spell. And that she was about to die. "If you kill her, I'll tear this country down. I'll grind silver into the soil. I swear it." Clarisse blinked at him, completely unconcerned. "Why? You don't love her." "I don't like her," Varis snarled. "I /do/ love her.

Yeah, and we could fly in on dragons and release a cloud of sugar plum fairies to tiptoe in an get the watch.

Jill had three basic statements about life,1. It is your life, usually with some added social commentary.2. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things.3. No one ever said that life was fair.

It never dawned on us that life is unpredictable, that one day, one of us could suddenly cease to exist and what then? What would be the joy in having left so much unsaid? With what memories would we fill the empty silence?