“It sounded to Claudine as if he’d been bullied into going. To make things look good. But she knew that trying to make your parents happy was like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it. She was living proof that no matter what you did, they never loved you back if it wasn’t in them. If you just weren’t in their thoughts like that, there was nothing you could do about it. But she could tell Tonye wasn’t ready to hear that. And probably never would be.”