Status Updates From The Vet's Daughter

"Even humble men are conceited sometimes."

"I couldn't even cry because I hated myself so much, I thought I heard someone else crying, though. Somehow I resented their sorrow, as if only I were entitled to it; but then I was ashamed of my utter selfishness."

"I felt a strange homesickness for no home I'd known."

"She grinned, 'It's nice to be some people and do nothing.' If that had been said to me before I came to the Island, I'd have felt guilty and jumped to my feet; but now I lay relaxed and lazy and, without turning my head, drawled, 'Well, you don't do very much yourself, do you?'".

"The air was very fresh, yet soft against my face, and suddenly I was filled with hope and not at all anxious."

"and there was my father in the hall. Seeing him unexpectedly like that, I saw him very clearly: he wasn't as large as I'd remembered him, but quite an ordinary size, and his cheeks hung down rather yellow and sad; only his moustache remained as it had always been—black and fierce and pointed."

"Everywhere in the house there were sad little reminders—a limp string shopping-bag hanging from the kitchen door; a fortune-telling book in the dresser-drawer; a fern in the dining-room window that had died from neglect since she had ceased to tend it; and one small black glove mixed up with the string she used to save—little things like that were everywhere."

"We were still laughing when I heard father come in and I knew our happy time was over."

"A stronger kind of sadness than I usually knew suddenly came as I looked at Mother and saw how really ill she was."

"The day was nearly over and it was like most of the days I could remember: all overshadowed by my father and cleaning the cats' cages and the smell of cabbage, escaping gas and my father's scent. There were moments of peace, and sometimes sunlight outside. It was like that all the time."

last chance barb!!