Archive of the Day

From Empire Falls by Richard Russo:

"Cindy--" Miles began.

"I can bear it that you don't love me, Miles," she said. "I've borne it all my life. But if I thought I made you want to run away..."

"We're old friends," he assured her. "I don't want to run away from you."

She gave him a smile in which hope and knowledge were going at it, bare-knuckled, equally and eternally matched. No, there was a God after all, Miles concluded, as he took his leave of her. This misery was His plan for us.