both/and as opposed to and/or

My Dad phoned last night after I had gone to bed. He was in Darwin and forgot how late it was in Tasmania. Frank took the call and informed him of my whereabouts before coming to bed himself. I fell into a fitful sleep fueled by fanciful dreams of telling Dad exactly what I thought of his remarriage. Our imagined conversations followed the usual dreamy vein of things, never quite going to plan. I woke up muddled and tired.

As a holiday treat I bought a new Jodi Picoult book, Songs of the Humpback Whale. Personally I like it least of all her books I've read. Something just didn't sit right with me; too much sex, overtones of warped incest, too rapid a fall into earth shattering love. The story struck me as unlikely, the daughter was implausibly wise for her years, and while the mother may well have been exquisitely unsure of herself so was the lead character in the last Jodi Picoult book I read. I laid the book aside with a taste of ash in my mouth.

What did pique my interest was the way both the main character and her daughter had no love in their hearts for their fathers.

Is this possible? With enough provocation, do daughters just stop loving their fathers? Or do they carry around in them a buried love that is almost impossible to locate, a forever longing for a connection not marred by violence or sex?

I don't know... for me, I still love my Dad. I also long for a better connection.