Janet Fitch

Her beauty was like the edge of a very sharp knife.

I had seen girls clamor for new clothes and complain about what their mothers made for dinner. I was always mortified. Didn’t they know they were tying their mothers to the ground? Weren’t chains ashamed of their prisoners?

“Men,” she said. “No matter how unappealing, each of them imagines he is somehow worthy.”

“We strive for beauty and balance, the sensual over the sentimental.”

She was a beautiful woman dragging a crippled foot and I was that foot. I was bricks sewn into the hem of her clothes, I was a steel dress

Didn’t they know they were tying their mothers to the ground? Weren’t chains ashamed of their prisoners

I was, a dog she could tie in front of the store, a parrot on her shoulder

Beauty was my mother’s law, her religion. You could do anything you wanted, as long as you were beautiful, as long as you did things beautifully

“Men,” she said. “No matter how unappealing, each of them imagines he is somehow worthy.”

Only peons made excuses for themselves, she taught me. Never apologize, never