“She’d heard it from him all her life; just once she wanted to hear him say that Mom should try harder. “I will,” she said, completing their little fairy tale as she always did. And she would try. She always did, but she and her mother would never be close. There was just too much water under that bridge.”

“She’d heard it from him all her life; just once she wanted to hear him say that Mom should try harder. “I will,” she said, completing their little fairy tale as she always did. And she would try. She always did, but she and her mother would never be close. There was just too much water under that bridge.”

— Kristin Hannah