Wouldn't. Think. About. Ian.

C'mon, Amy, cinnamon rolls are calling us." Dan put a hand to his ear. "Do you hear? 'Amy? Dan?'" he squeaked. "'Come and get my sugary, sticky goodness!

Amy sighed. Just when she started to almost like Ian again—after all, he'd flown across the ocean and had been working around the clock to help—his snob quotient went through the roof.

That's it. Gently now," Reagan said to Nellie. "We'll move onto the hard stuff tomorrow." "This...isn't...the hard stuff?" Nellie spit out through gritted teeth. Reagan grinned. "You really hate me right now, don't you?" "Immeasurably." "Good. Give me ten.

But while I'd be their daughter, while I'd eat the roast and come home from dates and wash the dishes, I would also be myself. I would love my mother, but I'd never want to be her again. I would never be what someone else wanted me to be. I would never laugh at a joke I didn't think was funny. I would never tell another lie. I would be the truth-teller, starting today. That would be tough. But I was tougher.

I always wanted a father. Any kind. A strict one, a funny one, one who bought me pink dresses, one who wished I was a boy. One who traveled, one who never got up out of his Morris chair. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. I wanted shaving cream in the sink and whistling on the stairs. I wanted pants hung by their cuffs from a dresser drawer. I wanted change jingling in a pocket and the sound of ice cracking in a cocktail glass at five thirty. I wanted to hear my mother laugh behind a closed door.

When you lose your parents, the sadness doesn't go away. It just changes. It hits you sideways sometimes instead of head-on. Like now.