The Keeper of Happy Endings

by Barbara Davis

Until you know for sure, there is still hope. And hope costs us nothing.”

“Being strong for too long makes one brittle, chérie. And brittle things break easily.”

I feel her anger in my bones, the tug-of-war between mother and daughter. It’s a clash as old as time itself, for there have always been mothers who knew best. Just as there have always been daughters who knew better. It’s a contradiction that is part of every woman’s journey—the need to shape in one’s own image versus the aversion to being shaped at all.