Jean Meltzer

“Holy shiiiiii—” Chris jumped from the couch.
“Dad!” Lacey interrupted him, pulling on his sleeve. “In this house, we say shinoozle.”

Chapter 41

Chris searched for men who checked as many boxes as possible on Dara’s perfect Jewish husband list. When he found those men, he funneled them into three bins for casting marked Yes, No and Call the Police.

Chapter 15

Not all tears were bad. Some hurts deserved to roll freely down your cheeks, without shame or embarrassment.

Chapter 28

I don’t know, but I feel like…if someone makes you want to eat ice cream, you should probably keep them around.

Chapter 37

“Dara,” he said, speaking directly through the speaker. “It’s me. Chris. I forgot my phone at home. Listen, if you’re hearing this… I’m on my way, okay?”
“Me, too!” Lacey said.
“Me, three!” another voice said.
“Us, too!” rang out a chorus in the background.

Chapter 42

“So the thing about race car drivers is they all skid, right? They’re going around this track super fast, and at some point in their career, in one of those races, their car is going to spin out of control. Now, the instinct for most people when that starts to happen is to look at the wall. They look at the place that they’re heading, with their hands on the wheel. They grip down hard and try to correct course. And do you know what happens if a race car driver looks at the wall while skidding?”
Dara shrugged.
“They crash.”
“This is supposed to be a pep talk?”
“My point is, Dara—” Chris couldn’t help but laugh a little “—if you look at the wall, if you look at the thing you fear while you’re skidding, you’ll crash. The right thing to do, even though it feels completely antithetical to every human instinct, is to look back at the track. You turn your head around in the vehicle, with your hands still gripping the wheel, and you focus on where you need to go. You focus on the goal. Not the thing you fear.”

Chapter 13

Her eyes wandered down to her red high heels. She hated wearing heels in the city. Not for any practical reason, or because they gave her blisters. But because in case of emergency, the zombie apocalypse or another mass casualty event, she was worried about having to traverse sixty city blocks—or, God forbid, a bridge—to get back home.

Chapter 1

“I know it sounds silly,” she said quietly. “But when I hear all those voices—all those stories, happening at once—I know I’m not alone in this world.”
“But a lot of those stories are bad. It doesn’t stress you out…hearing everyone’s sadness?”
“You’re right.” Dara considered his question thoughtfully. “A lot of the stuff on the scanner is terrible. There are heart attacks, and people committing crimes, and car accidents. Life is filled with terrible and hurtful things. But you know what always makes me feel better about that?”
He shook his head.
“Life goes on, anyway.”

Chapter 20

Courage isn’t about jumping out of airplanes or building businesses from scratch. Real courage is showing up, even when you’re afraid. Real courage is putting yourself out there, even when you fail—especially when you fail. Courage is saying, this is who I am, standing up, allowing yourself to be vulnerable.

Chapter 42

Life could be hard. It was filled with sadness, and bitterness, all manner of suffering—but life also found a way to go on, anyway.

Chapter 20