Great Big Beautiful Life

“He was the one who built the House of Ives as the world knows it. But I’ve always thought of him as the beginning of the end. The stepping stone that decided the entire path. The first domino that tipped. The one who, for better or worse, set every moment of my life into motion.”

“I think she loves me because I’m her daughter. But I’ve never felt sure she loves me because I’m me. Does that make sense?”

“That’s what my family used to make themselves very rich—and like Dove Franklin says, powerful too. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. Even if you’re the one to build the monster, you’re never going to be able to control it. It’ll gladly eat you alive and floss with your bones, once it’s finished with everyone else.”

“It feels like you’ve lived their whole life with them. And I just can’t help but think, we’re not supposed to know how it all ends, this early. It’s too much of a burden.”

“He was the love of her life, and he let the world make him too small for her.”

“Every bad thing that every perfect stranger said about him mattered. Because he wasn’t used to discounting it. He was used to people’s opinions of him having been formed by…well, him. His actions and intentions, their personal experience with him.”

“I was a news story the moment I was born. From before my first breath, there were two distinct Margaret Iveses. There was me, and then there was the other one, the one who belonged to the public. Who got written about. Who people loved at times and hated at others, and no matter where I stood with the public, I understood that it wasn’t really me.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you sound like a robot learning to love.”

“All I ever want is to be around you. It’s not just sex. I mean, I do want to have sex with you.”

“But this is who I am, and even if you don’t understand it, couldn’t you just pretend for a few days a year that you respect me? That you like me? Because I can’t figure out how to be anyone else, and it’s lonely, it’s so fucking lonely being the person who doesn’t belong in this family.”

“Remembering my decisions don’t make much of a difference in the end.”

“Pretending everything’s fine only works for so long. And I don’t know. It freaks me out a little, that I could…that I could feel like this, about someone who’s good at pretending to be fine. That I could miss it, if you’re actually not. It was about me. Like you said.”

“I’ve always felt most myself when I’m alone.”

“I promise. I love touching you. I love kissing you. I love hanging out with you. I love this.”

“For the one you love? Anything. You unmake the world and build a new one. You do anything to give them what they need.”

“Well, if you’d like, I can get you my mom’s phone number and the two of you can compare notes about all the more impressive jobs I could’ve had, and then I can reach out to your dad and let him know I agree you should’ve played basketball in high school.”

“I understood what really mattered. I understood my priorities. I understood what, in this life, was nonnegotiable for me. A lot of people don’t find that out until it’s too late. They wait to say things, and they don’t get the chance. So collecting other people’s stories, learning from their mistakes, it is a gift too. You are who you are right now in part because of what you did for Len and his family. You can’t control any of that other stuff you worry about, but you can control what you do.”

“Inappropriate? I didn’t think so. Curious? Exceptionally, seeing as how my husband had to have passed away at least thirty years before you were even born.”