In the acknowledgements, Jackie writes of her husband:



"He helped me understand that secrets burn us and openness expands our hearts...There are so many ways to be in the world and none of them have to be the expected."



And I knew I was in good hands with this author.



Having been raised in a small ranching town at the furthest outskirts of Eastern Oregon, I felt uncomfortably placed in this gorgeous story. These people are my people, I walked the halls of a high school exactly like Jackie's, the

In the acknowledgements, Jackie writes of her husband:



"He helped me understand that secrets burn us and openness expands our hearts...There are so many ways to be in the world and none of them have to be the expected."



And I knew I was in good hands with this author.



Having been raised in a small ranching town at the furthest outskirts of Eastern Oregon, I felt uncomfortably placed in this gorgeous story. These people are my people, I walked the halls of a high school exactly like Jackie's, the striking descriptions of the big sky, fields of wheat, 4-H, rodeos, the flickering TV a constant in the family room and the unspoken edict that all women have babies- all of it put me right there. In a place I fled at 17, but is always tucked away in my heart. Next to the sagebrush and catfish derbies.



When I was 13, I was staring out the car-window as my favorite aunt drove us to town. The nearest 'big' town had 11,000 people and was a 40-minute drive away. From nowhere, she asked the car, which contained me and two of my female cousins, "So, when you have kids, what do you think you'll name them?"



My two cousins perked up. This was obviously a conversation they had had before. Names and reasons tumbled out of them. Their teenage logic for naming another human being, albeit an imaginary one, was on full display: Oh, I love the name Jennifer. (Jennifer being that cousin's best-friend's name), but I don't like the name Don. I would never name my kid Don. (Don being a very old alcoholic in town, who would try to catch you in alleyways or lure you away from the adults to talk to you.)



I sat quietly, I couldn't think of one name. I felt myself panicking. I was 13. I wanted the new Duran Duran album when we got to town, this naming of babies was way out of my wheelhouse. My aunt noticed my silence and directed the question at me. I mumbled a few names. Satisfied, she went back to my more eager conversationalist cousins.



In that moment, right then, I knew kids were not going to be for me. I knew it just like I knew a whole lot of other stuff that no one had taught me. Like to never go down an alley with Don.



Every single girl I knew from high school had a child, some 6 children.



Jackie Shannon Hollis' gorgeous, heart-breaking and hopeful story is one of love, and kindness, and making hard decisions. Decisions you never thought you would have to make and then learning how to live with, and in. them. Learning what family means. And most importantly, how to love people who maybe didn't know how to love you back in a way that made sense.



My only wish for this book, was it was longer. I was gutted when I came to the end on Kindle. It caught me off guard and I sat for a good long while wishing for more.