Karen B

“No,” I said, “there isn’t.” After that, getting ready to leave stopped feeling like a big negative chore and began to feel more like a celebration. “Be sure to say thank you to Oscar for that tart,” my mum had said, looking kind of mystified and happy, while Dad had nodded dreamily in the background. “Okay, I will,” I said. Who would’ve guessed that something so specific, so definite, so full of butter and sugar would have been the answer to my fears? It turns out, though, that Oscar’s tart was the solution. Such a simple thing. Oscar said that now that I was committed to the trip, it was going to be better than even he’d predicted. As soon as I arrived, everything was going to be instantly fantastic—I was going to have a wonderful time and it was all going to work out perfectly brilliantly. But along with these new warm feelings, there was something else too. The thing that had been haunting me swelled up inside me again, and I”
― Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, The Apple Tart of Hope