An Unexpected Resonance

In "Daniel Isn’t Talking", Marti Leimbach has written a novel about a mother discovering her son has autism and trying to find him treatment. I must say, it got quite an emotional response from me. I was ready to kill the asshole husband and all the doctors who wrote off Daniel as untreatable. I really liked it, though I haven’t got a lot to say about it. What did really resonant with me was the following quote:

“When Stephen left, it was like an emptying out of my life, of all our years together. It was as though where once there had been the essential everyday tools of living – cutlery and scissors, car keys and batteries – there was now an empty drawer. But then I discovered something. It seemed there lay buried inside me a different person than the one who had been living with Stephen. Perhaps, through some subtle sleight of hand, love affairs alter you, displace you, transform you into a kind of alternative person. Andy would say they left their mark. The person I had been with Stephen was similar but not identical to the person I became after he left.”