And Samantha had just, calmly and without cruelty, kicked that beam out from under the whole structure.

No one had turned the girls against Laura.

Laura had done it herself, one missed birthday at a time, one returned card at a time, across fifteen years, and the girls had simply, slowly, drawn the obvious conclusion that any child eventually draws about a parent who does not come.

It was the plainest truth in the world, and it was the one truth Laura had spent fifteen years refusing to face, and now her own daughter had spoken it aloud in front of everyone she had come to impress.

Chapter 24 — The Notebook