Jacey

“The lawn is brown from the too-dry summer that has just ended. It crunches under her shoes as she walks up to the front door. She thinks the noise of the grass underfoot is probably loud enough, but she pauses at the bottom of the porch steps just in case. She doesn't want to get yelled at in front of the policemen. Her mother has told her several times not to sneak, as if it's Vera's fault that nobody pays attention to the sounds of her life.”
― Sarah Gailey, Just Like Home

“But she couldn't stop laughing, because here it was. Here was Duvall's anger. Here was his violence. Here was the thing she'd been trying to avoid this whole time, the thing that she'd run away from last night, the thing that had made her weep in her bed with fear and hunger and urgent need.
He was no bigger than the men who'd died beneath her bed when she was a child. His anger was no greater than their fear had been. She'd been so afraid of what his anger might unlock in her, but here it was, pointed right at her, and it was so small. He was clenching his fists and stomping his feet and shouting as if that could touch her.”
― Sarah Gailey, Just Like Home

“She just needs to do this. She needs to act so mad and scary. That's how Francis had explained it, back when Vera was little enough to be surprised and frightened by her mother's moods.
Sometimes, moms just need to be mad like that, he'd said. Sometimes they need to say and do things that hurt you. It's how they love you. It's part of what being a mom is all about. You'll learn someday he'd added, laying an affectionate hand on her head.”
― Sarah Gailey, Just Like Home

“She'd learned to stop thinking of her mother as a person a long time ago, back when it still hurt to want Daphne to love her. Forgetting that her mother was human had been necessary. It had been the only way to survive the years when she still lived with a mother who looked at her daughter as if she were black mold blooming across the kitchen counter. It had been the only way to get through the years after that, when Vera was all alone in a world where someone always seemed to find out who she really was.
But now, she had to think of her mother as a person. As a person who needed things. As a person who was sick and deserved care and dignity.”
― Sarah Gailey, Just Like Home