Inventing the Abbotts 1997 quotes, page 2

Jacey pretended to care for Alice so well, the illusion became so complete that even he was fooled.

My brother and I were born strangers. Same last name, same address, but everything else about us was different. Back then, Jacey was a complete mystery to me, and I was a constant source of embarrasment to him.

My brother was more successful at reinventing himself than I was. Jacey's parties at the University of Pennsylvania were the hippest ones around. And even though he had a major in architecture, he seriously minored in beautiful coeds.

My mother was right; if the Abbotts didn't exist, Jacey would have had to invent them, but it seems to me that inventing the Abbotts was something that almost everyone in Haley did, and still do. Alice reunited with Peter, lived out the same lie of a happy marriage that her mother and father have lived, and a new generation of Abbott parties began.

My mother's life had been damaged by a lie, and my brother was forever lost in a maze of illusions that lie had created... and I had followed him there. Jacey would never find his way out, but I had to... and the only way I could do that was to forgive, but I could never forget.

That visit from Joan Abbott not only marked the end of Jacey's affair with Eleanor, but also the end of Eleanor Abbott herself. She disappeared from Haley, vanished or banished, no one knew for certain. But life with the Abbotts went on without her.

The truth about our mother and Lloyd didn't comfort Jacey, because the truth seemed to him just as unfair as the lie he had always believed in.

Pamela Abbott

How can you ever forgive me?

Doug Holt

You always love me no matter what I did, right?

Pamela Abbott

Yeah.

Doug Holt

Maybe that's how I love you. No matter what. It's the best kind of love, you know?

Pamela Abbott

Look, Alice is the good daughter, Eleanor's the bad one, and I'm the one that sort of gets off the hook. It's just the way it works.

Pamela Abbott

Look, I'm not rich. My father is. And I didn't pick my father. And if I had a choice between having tons of money and having another father, I'd be absolutely delighted to be poor. But unfortunately, life is just not a cafeteria.

Doug Holt

Life is not a cafeteria?

Pamela Abbott

You know what I mean.

Pamela Abbott

Stop treating me like an Abbott!

Doug Holt

How the hell am I supposed to treat you?

Pamela Abbott

Like you used to; like just plain Pam. And you don't have to say that you're sorry! And don't look at me as though someone just ran over you dog! It's make me want to scream sometimes.

Pamela Abbott

You don't know my father, you don't know how he is about Jacey. He blames him for everything that happened with Eleanor.

Doug Holt

Look, Eleanor flirts with a lot of guys. It's not Jacey's fault you dad kicked her out.

Pamela Abbott

He didn't kick her out, he sent her off to some goddamned nuthouse. He just up and shipped her off to some clinic; she was consigned.

Doug Holt

Wait, I thought you said that she's in Chicago.

Pamela Abbott

Well, she is now, they let her out like a month ago.

The end of my innocence and childhood began in 1957. It is remarkable to me now just how little I knew then about the people around me. It took me years to figure out exactly what the truth was, especially given my brother's knack at inventing himself. My mother once told me that if the Abbotts didn't exist, my brother wouldn't have to invent them.

You look like a clown. He looks like a clown, mom, and he doesn't even know it. I thought you weren't going to the party.

Doug Holt

I changed my mind.

Helen Holt

Doug, you do realize that you maybe the only person in this party with artificial sideburns.

A year later, the impossible finally happened. One of the Holt boys married one of the Abbott girls. We have two daughters. I named the youngest Helen after my mom.