She had baked Sorrow Pie for dinner the night Daniel got word of his mother’s death a funeral he would not attend and a woman he had, to Laura’s knowledge, never cried for. Daniel was the one who usually cooked, but when desperate measures were called for, Laura would put on an apron and pull out her great-grandmother’s stoneware pie plate, the one that turned a different color each time it came out of an oven. It was the way you might find the unlikely in any spoonful - a burst of cinnamon mixed with common pepper, lemon peel and vinegar sobering the crust - not to mention the ritual of preparation, which required the cook to look into the cupboard for her ingredients, to cut shortening only with the left hand, and, of course, to season the mixture with a tear of her own. it made Sorrow Pie a force to be reckoned with. Laura knew that the shopping list in and of itself was nothing extraordinary: a chicken, four potatoes, leeks more white Han green, pearl onions and whipping cream, bay leaves and basil. She knew the ingredients by heart, knew the careful procedure to make sure the crust didn’t burn and the carrots didn’t dissolve in the broth, and knew exactly how many bites it would take before the heaviness weighing on the diner’s heart disappeared.

Daniel was supremely grateful to have been After tonight, there was no more room in her life for honesty. After tonight, she couldn’t be a kid anymore. In the wake of a disaster, the last thing you needed to do was set off another bomb instead, you walked through the rubble and told yourself that it wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked. They were both lying, and Trixie thought maybe that was the way it would be, now. Laura folded her arms around Trixie so tight that there was no room for doubt between them. Because if it was her mothers mistake, then it couldn’t be hers. Because if Trixie was angry, there was no room left for being scared. Because a mother was supposed to protect her child. Maybe none of this had been her mother’s fault, but Trixie pretended it was. Maybe the worst hurt she would have had to nurse was another razor stripe, a self-inflicted wound. Maybe she would have spent the night in her own bed. Maybe then Trixie wouldn’t have chanced lying about going to Zephyr’s maybe she never would have had the opportunity to steal the sheer blouse.

I’m so sorry.” Trixie wasn’t sure if her mother was apologizing, or just acknowledging her own errors. “I should have been home,” her mother said.

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult