„THE PAPER PALACE” de Miranda Cowley Heller

„In my mother’s family, divorce is just a seven-letter word.
Letters that could easily be replaced with I’m bored or bad luck.
Both of her parents married three times.”

Elle iubește și este iubită de 2 bărbați: Jonas, prietenul din copilărie și prima ei dragoste respectiv Peter, soțul ei și tatăl celor 3 copii.
Cu cîtă ușurință aș putea să o judec pe Elle dar nu o fac deoarece mi se par extrem de interesante poveștile în care oamenii au parte de mai multe iubiri și realizez cât de dificil trebuie să le fie atunci când trebuie să aleagă cu cine rămân.

PETER
„I love him–everything about him.
The way, when he is excited, the tips of his ears flush red. The length of his gait.
The way he steadies me, makes me safe.
His long, elegant hands.
The way he always gives money to beggars, looks them in the eye with respect.
The person he sees when he looks at me.”

JONAS
„He pulls me to him so quickly I have no time to react. Kisses me with the intensity of every day, every month, every year we have loved each other.
It is not our first kiss. That was long time ago, underwater, when we were children–when we said goodbye for the first time, knowing it would not be the last.
But this time when I pull away from him, it is agonizing. Not found, but lost. I pause, stand on the precipice of memory, wanting so desperately to fall into it, knowing I can’t.
Jonas is animal, Peter is mineral.
And I need a rock.”

ELLE
„And the choice Jonas is asking me to make now.
To leave my wonderful husband. To cause my children pain.
Peter is not vindictive–whatever happens, he would never take them away from me, never create a rift between me and them. He loves us all too much for that. He is a man with backbone.
It is his gravity that holds my orbit steady when I falter.

I am in love with Jonas. I always have been.
I cannot live without him, cannot give him up now, after waiting for so long.

But I’m in love with Peter, too.

I have two choices. One I can’t have. One I don’t deserve to have.”

P.S. Mi-a plăcut semnificația numelui ei: Elle! Ea poate fi oricare dintre noi.

Kindle, 2022