Mer Mendoza (Merlyn’s Book Hoard)’s Reviews > One Sun Only: Stories > Status Update

“When it came to fiction, I knew that some people were able to engage only with material they had the capacity to correct. My mother had been that way. As a nurse, she’d loved to spot all the errors in ER, but it was still her favorite show. She said that the writers had gotten something right about the emergency room that made you look past all the fuckups.”

“The TV was on in front of me, covering Hurricane Jared’s progress toward Florida, four thousand miles away. U.S. news played in the background nonstop at the embassy now. We used to watch it only during political crises and human catastrophes, but I guess someone had failed to turn it off at some point, weeks or months before, and we’d all tacitly agreed to wait for the next disaster to come to us live.”

“Miracles didn’t happen for them in Lourdes—people don’t talk about it, but those for whom miracles don’t happen in Lourdes tend to leave France in worse shape than they arrived.”

“I knew that she’d been adopted, of course, which made me envious. To be able to look at the people who love you the most and not have to worry that you’ll turn out exactly like them must be amazing, I thought. An endlessly renewable source of relief.”