“I know how betrayal and disillusionment feel, when someone who could give you the world refuses even a tiny piece of it.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“The goal with teenagers is simply getting through it alive, with no permanent damage.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“But he holds me so tightly that for a moment, the emotions are at bay. The sadness and fear, the regret and the loathing. He bottles them up inside his arms so that for a split second I don’t have to be the one carrying the weight of them. For this moment, the burden is his.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“The Chicago winter is harsh. But every now and then God blesses us with a thirty-or forty-degree day to remind us that misery comes and goes.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“Teenagers believe they’re invincible—nothing bad can happen. It isn’t until later that we realize that bad things do, in fact, happen.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“We fall into oblivion this way, into a world where nothing matters. Nothing but us.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“That I love her. That I’m sorry.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“But mostly I think of the things I didn’t do.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“Beautiful doesn't do her justice.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“As it was, being a bad mother was child’s play compared to being a good mother, which was an incessant struggle, a lose-lose situation 24 hours a day; long after the kids were in bed the torment of what I did or didn’t do during those hours we were trapped together would scourge my soul.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“She says that the sky was the color of persimmon and sangria, shades of red only God could make.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“According to research, people who live with animals have decreased anxiety and lower blood pressure. They have lower cholesterol. They are more relaxed and less stressed and are, overall, in better health. Unless of course you have a dog who pees uncontrollably wherever it wishes or eats your furniture to shreds.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“His arms wrap around me from behind, and my heart rhythm slows to a steady jog. His chin rests on the top of my head, and my breath comes back to me, oxygen filling my lungs.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“She said something to you and you smiled and I thought to myself that I'd never seen anything so... I don't know... I'd never seen anything so beautiful in my life.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“I watch the way her skin becomes red from the cold. The way her hair blows around in the breeze. She tucks it behind an ear, hoping to contain it, but it doesn't work. Not all things like to be contained.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“The ducks and geese fly overhead. Everyone is leaving me.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“The weathermen warn us for days of the impending snowstorm that's to arrive Thursday night. The grocery stores have run out of bottle water as people prepare to take shelter in their homes; my God, I think, it's winter, an annual certainty, not the atomic bomb.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“She says that she used to enjoy, when darkness set in, when the outside world changed. She describes it for me: the way the streetlights and buildings twinkled in the night sky. She says that she liked the anonymity of it, and all the possibilities that developed when the sun went to sleep. But now the darkness terrifies her, all the nameless things on the other side of the silk drapes.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“I've been following her for the last few days. I know where she buys her groceries where she has her dry cleaning done, where she works. I've never spoken to her. I wouldn't recognize the sound of her voice. I don't know the color of her eyes or what they look like when she's scared. But I will.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“I don't tell her the way she makes me feel when she looks at me, or how I hear her voice at night, in my dreams, forgiving me. I don't tell her I'm sorry, though I am. I don't tell her that I think she's beautiful, even when I see her look in a mirror and hate the image she sees.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“What did you want?” she asks. What I wanted was a dad. Someone to take care of my mother and me, so I didn’t have to do it myself. But what I tell her is Atari.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“I was certainly not the best mother. That goes without saying. I didn’t set out to be a bad mother, however. It just happened. As it was, being a bad mother was child’s play compared to being a good mother, which was an incessant struggle, a lose-lose situation 24 hours a day; long after the kids were in bed the torment of what I did or didn’t do during those hours we were trapped together would scourge my soul. Why did I allow Grace to make Mia cry? Why did I snap at Mia to stop just to silence the noise? Why did I sneak to a quiet place, whenever I could? Why did I rush the days—will them to hurry by—so I could be alone? Other mothers took their children to museums, the gardens, the beach. I kept mine indoors, as much as I could, so we wouldn’t cause a scene. I lie awake at night wondering: what if I never have a chance to make it up to Mia? What if I’m never able to show her the kind of mother I always longed to be? The kind who played endless hours of hide-and-seek, who gossiped side by side on their daughters’ beds about which boys in the junior high were cute. I always envisioned a friendship between my daughters and me. I imagined shopping together and sharing secrets, rather than the formal, obligatory relationship that now exists between myself and Grace and Mia. I list in my head all the things that I would tell Mia if I could. That I chose the name Mia for my great-grandmother, Amelia, vetoing James’s alternative: Abigail. That the Christmas she turned four, James stayed up until 3:00 a.m. assembling the dollhouse of her dreams. That even though her memories of her father are filled with nothing but malaise, there were split seconds of goodness: James teaching her how to swim, James helping her prepare for a fourth-grade spelling test. That I mourn each and every time I turned down an extra book before bed, desperate now for just five more minutes of laughing at Harry the Dirty Dog. That I go to the bookstore and purchase a copy after unsuccessfully ransacking the basement for the one that used to be hers. That I sit on the floor of her old bedroom and read it again and again and again. That I love her. That I’m sorry. Colin”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“Picasso, that’s abstract art. Kandinsky. Jackson Pollock.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“But if I wanted to atone, I would have bought her that sketch pad.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“There was a time in my life when the eyes of men followed me. When men thought I was beautiful. When I passed through a room on the arm of James Dennett and every man and his covetous wife turned to stare. I feel the detective’s arms around me still, the reassurance and compassion, the warmth of his flesh. But now he stands feet away and I find myself staring at the floor. His hand comes to my chin. He lifts my face, forces me to see him. “Mrs. Dennett,” he says, and then he starts again, knowing I’m not quite looking. I can’t. I’m too ashamed to see what’s in his eyes. “Eve.” I look and there’s no anger, no scorn. “There isn’t anything in the world that I’d rather do. It’s just that...under the circumstances...” I nod. I know. “You’re an honorable man,” I say. “Or a good liar.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“Beethoven wrote Für Elise around 1810, though Elise was actually supposed to be Therese, a woman he was to marry in the same year. Before”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“I know the feel of dismissive eyes, eyes that look without really seeing a thing. I know the sound of contempt in a voice. I know how betrayal and disillusionment feel, when someone who could give you the world refuses even a tiny piece of it.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“I was enraptured by this handsome man I'd met in a restaurant in the city, this alluring man who made me feel like I walked on air. Now he's gone and all that remains in the space between us are hurt feelings and despicable words.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“But I can assume he wasn’t hugged a whole lot. His family didn’t pray before dinner. They didn’t go camping or snuggle together on the couch for movie night. I can assume his father never helped him with his algebra homework. I can guess that at least once, someone forgot to pick him up from school. I can guess that at some point in his life, no one was paying attention to what he watched on TV. And I can guess that he’s been smacked across the face by someone who should’ve known better, someone he trusted. I flip through”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl

“About a third of adults have a low level of literacy, which means they can’t fill out job applications; they can’t read directions or know which stop along the “L” track is theirs. They can’t help their children with their homework.”
― Mary Kubica, The Good Girl