We can bury the lies and embrace the truth.

" Every family has a story, told and retold so many times is seems firm and irrefutable. Etched in granite. Here are the bare bones of my family's story:

My parents were murdered by a masked stranger, who shot them in our driveway.

My sister, Rebecca, is beautiful, wild, coolheaded and fiercely independent. She needs no one to make her happy. She does, however, need danger.

I am sensitive, quiet, brilliant and fearful, in many ways my sister's opposite. I need safety, protection and a man who loves me.

More often than not, family stories turn out to be etched in sand rather than granite. Even the parts we think are true - even the parts about ourselves - crumble under scrutiny. These are the lies we tell everyone who knows us. These are the lies we tell ourselves.

...

I could smell the rain on her. I could smell fear.

...

It was always this way. Ninety-nine parts human kindness for every one part depravity.

...

I watched as Tully leaned over as though he might kiss Simmee's cheek. Instead, he breathed in the spun fold of her halo, and for a moment, I forgot about being afraid. Instead I felt touched. Touched and, finally, truly, grateful.

...

The tangled web of love and hate she felt for her? The admiration tainted by resentment? Her mind and heart could barely hold the contradictions. Lying there, she felt as though she might explode with them.

...

Every family has a story, and I love that those stories are etched in sand rather than granite. That way we can change them. We can bury the lies and embrace the truth.

And we can move forward"

-- The Lies We Told, Diane Chamberlain