A Home At The End Of The World

- Michael Cunningham 

This is what you do.
You make a future for yourself out of the raw material at hand. 
I sit typing at a desk from Monday to Friday, and twice weekly 
instruct other women in the art of folding eggs into batter,
of rolling dough so thin you could read newsprint through it.
I have little time for housework, but Bobby keeps the whole place spotless 
in my absence.
Save for the hours he puts on at the bakery, he is always home. Always.
He makes dinner every night. After dinner, Ned returns to the theater 
and Bobby and I watch television or play cards.
I sit with him until it's time for bed. Sometimes I suggest 
he go out and see what the world is up to.
I even offer to slip him some money, but he always says he's
exactly where he wants to be. So there we sit,
passing the hours, To be perfectly frank, I sometimes wish he'd leave.
He's so dogged in his devotions, so endlessly agreeable.

- Alice, p.106



We were half- lovers.
Together we occupied love's bright upper realm, 
where people delight in otherness, cherish their mates' oddities,
and wish them well. Because we were not lovers in the fleshly sense 
we had no use for the little murders.
Clare and I told our worst secrets and admitted to our most foollish fears.
We ate dinner and went shopping together, assessed the qualities of men 
who passes on the stresst.
Looking back, I think we were like the sisters in old stories; 
the stories in which the pretty younger girl can't marry until
somebody clamis the older, less attractive one. In our case, though, 
we were both sisters at one.
We shared a life of clothes and gossip and self-examination. 
We waited, with no particular urgency, to see whether
someone would claim one of us for the other, more terrifying kind of love.

- Jonathan, p.109



At dinner, we talk about the restaurant and the baby.
Lately our lives are devoted to the actual-we worry over Rebecca's cough 
and the delivery of our used-but-refurbished
walk-in refrigerator. I am beginning to understand the true difference between
youth and age. Young people have time
to make plans and think of new ideas. Older people need their whole energy to
keep up with what's already been set in motion.
"I don't like Or.Glass," Clare says. She is sitting beside Rebecca's high chair, spooning vanilla pudding into Rebecca's mouth.
Between each bite, Rebecca looks suspiciously at the spoon,
double-checking the contents.
She has inherited my appetite but has also inherited Clare's skepticism. 
She is both hungry and watchful.

- Bobby, p.269-p.270




"I think about us," I said. "Sure I do."
"I don't mean just think. I don't just mean that. 
I mean, well, do you ever wonder why we always heldback?
It seems like we could have done so much more to make each other happy."
Even in an extreme condition, such direct talk was hard on him. 
His fingers kneaded the edge of the blanket,
and his foot tapped dryly against the wicker chair leg.
"well. we had a certain kind of relationship," I said.
"It was pretty much what we both wanted, wasn't it?"
"I guess so. I guess it was. But lately I've been wondering, 
you know. I've been wondering, what were we waiting for?"
"I suppose we were waiting for our real lives to start. 
I think we probably made a mistake."

- Dialogue between Jonathan and Erich, p.317



The road was silver in the morning sun. It was a perfect day for traveling.
Rebecca kept up her wails in the back seat. Miles ticked away under the wheels.
I knew our lives wouldn't be easy. I pictured us together in San Francisco or
Seattle, moving into an apartment
where strangers argued on the other side of the wall. 
I'd push her stroller down unfamiliar streets, looking for the grocery store.
She wouldn't think of our lives as odd -not until she got older, 
and began to realize that other girls lived differently.
Then she'd start hating me for being alone, for being old and eccentric, 
for having failed to raise her with a backyard and a rec room and a father.
For a moment, I thought of turning back.
The impulse passed through me, and if I'd been able to make a U-turn 
I might have done it.
But we were on a straight stretch of highway.

- Clare, p.327A Home At The End Of The World - M. Cunningham Bookmark