“You sure?” Reginald cocked his head. “Actually, here’s the thing—turns out I wasn’t a disappointment at all. It was just in how I was perceiving it. This was something that came to me while I traveled. Yeah, my mom complained. Everything was a pain in the ass for her, even before my father died—including my father, who was probably the most decent, tolerant guy I’d ever met. But even if I’d been valedictorian, even if I’d won the lottery, even if I was the model son of her dreams, it wouldn’t have mattered.” He stared thoughtfully into the distance. “I don’t think she would have treated me any differently. It was just the way she was, you know?”

“That’s awfully big of you to let all of that go,” Andrea said.

“People don’t usually change. Once we understand that, life gets easier.” He sat back and smiled. “I knocked on her door about a year ago. She doesn’t live that far. I thought she was going to lecture me, give me hell because I hadn’t come around, but instead she threw her arms around me and said she missed me, all that stuff I’d given up hoping for.”

“How nice!”

“Well, I mean, she woke up the next day the same cranky bitch as ever.” Reginald started chuckling. “But I do talk to her again. I spent ten years blaming her, being angry. I felt cheated, like if I’d had a nice mom, I’d know what I wanted to do with my life.” He shrugged. “But maybe I’ll never know. And at this point, I like what I’m doing. I’m content. I’ve found my path.”

“That’s good.” Andrea’s voice was merely a whisper. Hadn’t she always thought about this, too, with her own family? She’d had every privilege, but people rarely looked past the Vandermeer money to see that they weren’t actually a functioning family. What she’d give for a real connection with one of them, but it was probably too late.

But even as Andrea thought this, she began to doubt its validity. Was it possible Reginald was right? Was this just her perception of things? There probably wasn’t any hope in forging a bond with her father, but if she spoke to, say, Cynthia differently, if she thought of Cynthia differently, if she just tried to put herself in Cynthia’s shoes, could she perhaps see where Cynthia was coming from, and maybe they could work to heal?

And also, hadn’t she found her path, too? She found gratitude in that. She understood the journey was so much harder for others than it had been for her. Maybe she had to come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t going to have everything in life, and that was okay.