Heather Parry

Orpheus Builds a Girl

Laura Dobie

It was seven hours across to America. Just seven hours to change who we were entirely. As we neared that new country Luci slept, still red and with her face all covered in rage. I slipped under Papá's arm while he looked out at the dying afternoon and asked him why we had to go to America. He said we were leaving Cuba because Mamá needed ice for her daiquiris; no woman could live in so hot a city without her ice.

It is not hard to see a man's darkest desires. No matter how cleverly they think they hide it, you can always see it, plain as day.

At that, she reached her spoon over the table and took the last mouthful of my sweet black cherry. I laughed, the greedy litle Luci never changing, but as I looked at her, black under the eyes, her hair thinning as it grew, her chest heaving for breath, my hope for her recovery died a little too.

This is a beautifully written and evocative description of grief.

Grief does not go away, but it does change, slowly. It turns from a hollow pit inside you to something you carry with you instead, a something, a shard of glass with its sharp end buried in the marrow of your bones. You can't push it out, but you do grow around it, like a tree engulfing a knife thrust into its bark.

Orpheus Builds a Girl quotes

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