Laura Dave

it wasn’t that his smile lit up his face. It wasn’t anything as sentimental or explosive as that. It was more that his smile—this generous, childlike smile—made him seem kind.

Part of it is that I recognize in her that thing that happens when you lose your mother. My mother left by choice, Bailey’s by tragedy, but it leaves a similar imprint on you either way. It leaves you in the same strange place, trying to figure out how to navigate the world without the most important person watching.

Maybe we are all fools, one way or another, when it comes to seeing the totality of the people who love us—the people we try to love.