The Nix

Why do the best things in life leave such deep scars?

he seemed on the verge of something substantial: crying or violence. You could never be sure with men.

Since men have their potency and masculinity vicariously confirmed through rape, they will never do anything to stop it. Unless we force them to.

But then she grew up and bought a house and found a lover and got some dogs and stewarded her land and tried to fill her home with love and life and she realized her earlier error: that these things did not make you small. In fact, these things seemed to enlarge her. That by choosing a few very private concerns and pouring herself into them, she had never felt so expanded. That, paradoxically, narrowing her concerns had made her more capable of love and generosity and empathy and, yes, even peace and justice. It was the difference between loving something out of duty—because the movement required it of you—and loving something you actually loved. Love—real, genuine, unasked-for love—made room for more of itself, it turned out. Love, when freely given, duplicates and multiplies.

Love is like this, Faye thinks now. We love people because they love us. It’s narcissistic.

on’t have to buy something, is my point. Nobody really needs any of this stuff.”

She reached into her purse and produced a ten-dollar bill. “Meet me back here in an hour.”

He gripped the money in his hand and marched off into the mal

He was feeling smaller than his body, as if his spirit had shrunk, always giving up his armrests on airplanes, always the one to move out of the way on sidewalks.