The Consumer Of Stories’s Reviews > The Undermining of Twyla and Frank > Status Update

“Watching your children sleep is the Three Mothers’ reward to you for not killing them while they were awake.”

“You expect to come and go, in and out of my life, however you please, the same way you walk in and out my door. When you need me I’m here, and when you don’t, guess what? I’m still here. And you know it. And you take advantage of it. So you tell me, who’s the fucking chair in this relationship?”

“Woman, I couldn’t say no to you if I tried. And I have no intention of trying.”

“I’ve spent most of my life being useful, and when a person has been useful for as long as I have, they come to believe that useful is all they are. But then you came along and wanted to spend time with me, for my own sake. I know this won’t make a bit of sense to you, but thank you for helping me see that I don’t have to be a chair for all eternity.”

“I, Mercy Elizabeth Birdsall, entrust you, Hartley James Ralston, with my life and all that I have made of it. I give you my happiness and my sorrow, my fortunes and my failures, my wisdom and my foolishness. Do you accept me as I am?” “I cherish all that you are, now and always,” Hart Ralston answered without needing to be prompted, his voice soft and gruff.

Never give a man a choice, her grandma Eloise had advised her a few days before her wedding. Never ask. Always tell him what he’s going to do. If you ask, you give him a choice, and if you give him a choice, he won’t do it.