Scan barcode
A review by mlautchi
The Worst Kind of Want by Liska Jacobs
3.0
I felt that old reverence for him, a deep, complicated love. (73)
She needs someone to listen, so I do.
But it's hard now, hearing her voice is like being hit with a weight.
I tune out just a little, just for self-preservation. (55)
*Be careful, Cilla. Be careful.* But it's hard to care anymore.
It's become difficult to think of anything else other than what's in the foreground: Donato and those twinkling lights in the olive trees just behind him. How easy it is to ignore the darkness in the distance. To pretend that this is all that there is. (132)
I swim across the pool in one breath and when I surface it's with the hope that not everything is inevitable. (172)
I remember once Emily and I were doing our nails on the beach, and she said, I wonder how many more times I will have to cut them. Such a sad thing for a kid to think about. (134)
age. There he is, I told myself, but could not keep from feeling that gap, the indescribable space that a person once occupied. Like a black hole, invisible and impossibly infinite. (197)
Maybe in another language, an ancient one, there is a word for motherhood that makes space for me. That includes what I am.
"It was never the right time," I tell her. (138)
But he isn't there. I remember that first time with him, on the train speeding through the center of Italy. A different Cilla, a different Donato. (179)
It's strange to accept that I could live a thousand lives and still it would not be sufficient. All that there is, is not enough- but I had known this already. (140)
I'd forgotten that it isn't always the parent who disappoints.
Sometimes it's the child--it must be both. Neither can be who the other imagines them to be.
(170)
One of life's inevitable disappointments is the moment when a child sees their parent as a fallible human being, and for me, that had happened years before. (166)
She needs someone to listen, so I do.
But it's hard now, hearing her voice is like being hit with a weight.
I tune out just a little, just for self-preservation. (55)
*Be careful, Cilla. Be careful.* But it's hard to care anymore.
It's become difficult to think of anything else other than what's in the foreground: Donato and those twinkling lights in the olive trees just behind him. How easy it is to ignore the darkness in the distance. To pretend that this is all that there is. (132)
I swim across the pool in one breath and when I surface it's with the hope that not everything is inevitable. (172)
I remember once Emily and I were doing our nails on the beach, and she said, I wonder how many more times I will have to cut them. Such a sad thing for a kid to think about. (134)
age. There he is, I told myself, but could not keep from feeling that gap, the indescribable space that a person once occupied. Like a black hole, invisible and impossibly infinite. (197)
Maybe in another language, an ancient one, there is a word for motherhood that makes space for me. That includes what I am.
"It was never the right time," I tell her. (138)
But he isn't there. I remember that first time with him, on the train speeding through the center of Italy. A different Cilla, a different Donato. (179)
It's strange to accept that I could live a thousand lives and still it would not be sufficient. All that there is, is not enough- but I had known this already. (140)
I'd forgotten that it isn't always the parent who disappoints.
Sometimes it's the child--it must be both. Neither can be who the other imagines them to be.
(170)
One of life's inevitable disappointments is the moment when a child sees their parent as a fallible human being, and for me, that had happened years before. (166)