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An intimate and emotional character-driven saga that works it’s way deep inside your heart – “What we carry” is a heart-wrenching story of grief, of loss, and of the patterns we learn early in life to manage our pain that can distort and warp our line-of-sight to healing.
Sometimes, a character in a book is so well-crafted, so nuanced, and so thoughtfully layered that you feel you know her. You don’t always like her, – you may even dislike her at some points in time – but she is authentic and she is hurting and you understand her and find her story deeply touching.
Cassidy, our main protagonist, is such a character. Cassidy is a veterinarian, a wife, a daughter and a sister. She is a bundle of want, of desire, of control, of science, and of intelligence. The oldest child of a mother with alarmingly narcissistic traits, Cassidy has learned to wind up her pain into tight little packets of safety – each painful wound guarded by layers of anger, rejection, or sarcasm – targeted to deflect, dehumanize, and head off any possibility of human approach (evil or life-affirming) with one fell swoop.
Owen, Cassidy’s husband, is a sweet and simple man, raised in a “big old farmhouse” in Kansas by plain-speaking, agenda-less, conscientious parents. Owen has learned to wear his heart on his sleeve and only wants to love and support and make Cassidy’s life better. “If I could take her pain away and make it my own, I would’. It’s not surprising that Cassidy fell in love with Owen – surviving as a couple though, is another matter entirely.
It takes a terrible tragedy to turn Cassidy and Owen’s life inside out, and as the drama plays out it is not at all certain that a full emotional recovery for their family unit is possible. As we follow the twists and turns of each of their well-primed reactions, their struggles, and the questions that remain, it’s impossible not to read on, with a lump in your throat, hoping for the very best, yet fearing the worst, until the final dramatic and harrowing resolution.
(No spoilers here). I will leave it to you to read the book, but let me just say, I loved the time I spent with these special people, (some of them more so than others), and long after the story ended, found myself remembering, and thinking about, – motherhood, love, loss, and the pain we reveal.
A great big thank you to the author for an advance review copy of this wonderful book. All thoughts presented are my own.
