Kristin Hannah

always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I’d like to be known.

If I had told him the truth long ago, or had danced and drunk and sung more, maybe he would have seen me instead of a dependable, ordinary mother. He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I’d like to be known.

If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.

As I approach the end of my years, I know that grief, like regret, settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us.

If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.

Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.

Leni was afraid to stay and afraid to leave. It was strange—stupid, even—but she often felt like the only adult in her family, as if she were the ballast that kept the creaky Allbright boat on an even keel.

But sometimes, especially on days like today, Leni was afraid. It felt to her as if her family stood poised on the edge of a great precipice that could collapse at any second, crumble away like the houses that crashed down Seattle’s unstable, waterlogged hillsides.

She had lain awake long past midnight, reading about the vast landscape of Alaska. It had captivated her in an unexpected way.

To damage the earth is to damage your children.

—WENDELL BERRY, FARMER AND POET