Voyager (Outlander, #3)

by Diana Gabaldon

“Has he come armed, then?” she asked anxiously. “Has he brought a pistol or a sword?” Ian shook his head, his dark hair lifting wildly in the wind. “Oh, no, Mam!” he said. “It’s worse. He’s brought a lawyer!”

“I have noticed,” she said slowly, “that time does not really exist for mothers, with regard to their children. It does not matter greatly how old the child is—in the blink of an eye, the mother can see the child again as it was when it was born, when it learned to walk, as it was at any age—at any time, even when the child is fully grown and a parent itself.”