Sameer

“It was safer for certain people to think she'd had it coming to her; it made it easier to believe it wouldn't come for them.”
― Sarah Perry, After the Eclipse: A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Search

“She looked to me as if she'd never been through anything more traumatic than someone fixing her coffee wrong, and I had nothing to say to her. That doctor lived in the same place my classmates did: an orderly universe governed by safety and logic. Her fancy degrees didn't change the fact that she was living a childish fiction.”
― Sarah Perry, After the Eclipse: A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Search

“And like many lies, this one revealed a wish. How lovely it would have been, I thought, to have had some time just to sink into misery. To not have to deal with family or school. To be surrounded by people whose job it was to keep you safe from your suicidal hand. And to have the circumstances of your life truly reflect what had happened to it. A mental hospital seemed to make a lot more sense than neat rows of chairs and desks, than football bleachers, than that white-lined running track.”
― Sarah Perry, After the Eclipse: A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Search

“Almost worse than the sorrow of missing her was the fact that Mom's death had revealed everything to be meaningless. So much of what I'd thought was true had turned out to be an illusion. I saw people around me living by these illusions— that love and safety could be counted on, that life had meaning and the future could be controlled— and I did not feel that I could ever again share their suspended disbelief. I was swimming against a strong, cold current: I could see them there, playing on a sunny beach, but I couldn't rejoin them. Continuing the struggle seemed not only incredibly painful but, even worse, pointless.”
― Sarah Perry, After the Eclipse: A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Search