“I missed my mother's father. Is that even possible? Maybe I had fallen asleep for a while. Maybe I was like her, just waking up and looking for him to be there. I wondered how it would have changed things for all of us if he had stayed home the day he was supposed to die in his car. How his decision to go out for something small, something like coffee or orange juice which everyone could have done without, had changed things for all of us.”

American author

Ann Patchett is an American author. She is known for her novels, including Bel Canto, for which she received the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2002. Her other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician's Assistant, Run, State of Wonder, Commonwealth, The Dutch House, and Tom Lake. Her work has earned major recognition, and The Dutch House was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.