Jacey

“She knows she's being mean, but she's so mad. She should feel afraid -- she knows, distantly, that if she saw this man in any other context, she'd be terrified. But this is her house, where she never has to feel afraid of anything, and so instead she just feels angry.
And the feeling isn't fading like it usually does. It isn't working its way into sadness, isn't fraying at the edges. It's hardening. It's sticking. It's a sharp thing that's lodged between her back teeth and it's making her mean. It's making her want to hurt the thing that her father is keeping down here in the basement.”
― 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

“Vera doesn't move, not a single muscle. This is the side of her mother she so rarely gets to see, the side she so deeply longs for. There is the most softness and allowance here that Vera ever gets to see. This kindness, this interest. Vera wants to lean toward it like a flower turning toward sunlight. She wants to eat it.”
― 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