The Good Daughter

They all stood in their mother’s shadow. Gamma Quinn was a towering figure: quick blue eyes, short dark hair, skin as pale as an envelope, and with a sharp tongue just as prone to inflicting tiny, painful cuts in inconvenient places

They all stood in their mother’s shadow. Gamma Quinn was a towering figure: quick blue eyes, short dark hair, skin as pale as an envelope, and with a sharp tongue just as prone to inflicting tiny, painful cuts in inconvenient places. Even from a distance, Samantha could see the thin line of Gamma’s disapproving lips as she studied the stopwatch in her hand.

Samantha Quinn felt the stinging of a thousand hornets inside her legs as she ran down the long, forlorn driveway toward the farmhouse

“The Golden Rule,” Charlie said. “Do unto others as they do unto you.”

I’m just the woman who cooks his meals and irons his clothes and bleaches the stains out of his underwear.”

“You never know how bad your marriage is until it’s over.”

“‘An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to evil, a false witness that speaketh lies and he that soweth discord among brethren.’”

“‘Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility.’”
“Shakespeare?”
“Mr. Darcy to Bingley.”
“Of all people.”
“If it wasn’t his pride, it was his prejudice.”

Charlie tore through her gifts like a Chihuahua on methamphetamine.

Sam had looked like the quintessential Victorian Dracula, from her stylish clothes to her air of entitlement, to the way she had unhinged her jaw and swallowed Ken Coin like a plump rat.