"trusting her arm and her love..."

12 September 2020: “When Raylene came to me, I let her touch my shoulder, let my head tilt to lean against her, trusting her arm and her love. I was who I was going to be, someone like her, like Mama, a Boatwright woman. I wrapped my fingers in Raylene’s and watched the night close in around us” (309).

The words above, from the closing of Bastard Out of Carolina, are in the presentation I am giving on September 21. I've practiced it the whole way through a few times and every time I feel myself getting choked up as I read them.