He had kept hoping, the way children of difficult parents keep hoping, that one more holiday, one more chance, might finally soften her.

By that Christmas, I would learn, he had stopped hoping.

He had started, instead, to prepare.

There is a specific grief that comes to the good children of unkind parents, and Caleb had been carrying it, I think, for most of his life, though I only came to understand its shape that Christmas.

It is the grief of loving someone who cannot, or will not, love the way you need them to, and of over many years, bit by bit,, running out of ways to explain it to yourself.

When you are young, you assume the coldness is your fault, and you try to earn the warmth.