Haley Grubbs

“Seated cross-legged, I was leaning against the shack across from her, waiting for Camile, when a man opened the door behind the girl. He came out in just underpants and seemed drunk. He looked at the girl, grabbed her by the hair, pulled her up off the chair, and yanked her into the shack. She didn’t scream or cry. You could tell she was used to being treated that way. It was always awful to see someone in the slums who’d become a ghost, who was no longer responsive, who didn’t feel anything, who merely existed but didn’t really live”
― Christina Rickardsson, Never Stop Walking: A Memoir of Finding Home Across the World

“I was eight years old when I came to Sweden, and my brother was twenty-two months. We are half siblings. We have the same mother but different fathers. In the adoption papers, I can read who Patrick’s father is, but in mine, the line for father is empty. I wonder if that means I’ll never find out who my biological father is. It feels weird to say that Patrick and I are half siblings. Maybe that’s because I didn’t know my father or Patrick’s. Because our fathers were absent, I’ve always viewed Patrick as my full brother. Maybe being adopted and getting a new mother and father also strengthened the bond between us as brother and sister. We became a family, a family defined not by blood, but by circumstances, by chance and, who knows, maybe by something inexplicable.”
― Christina Rickardsson, Never Stop Walking: A Memoir of Finding Home Across the World

“Suzanne lowered both front windows to combat the overbearing sweetness of the sixty hyacinths in the rear of the Navigator. She’d been delighted when the nursery offered potted plants as a donation for the Boosters auction, but she’d been told they would be tulips or daffodils. A single hyacinth in full bloom could send its scent to every corner of a moderate-size home; no one would be able to breathe, much less eat, with sixty blooming hyacinths in the Boar’s Head ballroom. If the flowers could be wrapped in cellophane, it might be tolerable. She couldn’t remember what they’d decided about packaging and presentation at the meeting last week. Fifty decisions at that meeting, plus a hundred more at two others—one for the faculty appreciation lunch and another for the food bank.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“A girl appeared at Suzanne’s side, the tallest girl Iris had ever seen, and nearly naked, wearing only tiny black shorts and a top made of two triangles and some string. It was a warm day, especially for April, and Iris could see why the girl wouldn’t want to wear a lot of clothes. But Nurse Amy had explained to her about modesty—rules about what to show when. Iris must have misunderstood. The girl’s body was strong and didn’t have a scar or bruise that Iris could see. She seemed to have been created just this morning”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places