Allee

“How cruel that our parents, unexorcisable, go on inside of us. How cruel that we cannot disimbricate their ghosts from our being.”
― Rivers Solomon, Model Home

“I felt a fear I’d had before: I needed the people in my life more than they needed me. This fear made me want to be useful and polite and good, so no one would ever tire of me; I had noticed the way some people, like my brother and father, drained the around them. And then I saw the problem from a different angle, in a different light, blinding and new: I had to care less about people. I had to separate myself from others. Let them need and miss me. Nothing exhausted me more than trying not to care. It was an effort, always. But it was necessary.”
― Santiago Jose Sanchez, Hombrecito

“A promise is a promise indeed. But is it any different from the promise my parents made to me, that they would always be there for me? Or is a promise the one they made to themselves, that they would do everything in their power to help those without power? Both were promises. Both were important. My parents were good people. But they had a higher calling.”
― Jenny Tinghui Zhang, Four Treasures of the Sky

“She had done her best to show him he was loved, even in the moments he perplexed and scared her. He was lucky, luckier than she’d been. She had wanted him to have a different life than hers, but she had not expected that in doing so she had given him a life that would take him away from her.”
― Santiago Jose Sanchez, Hombrecito