How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
(And Franklin, I was [a bad mother]. I was terrible at it. I wonder if you can ever forgive me.) (7.12)
In this aside, Eva asks forgiveness, for the first time. Notice that she's asking only her husband here. She doesn't really care what others think of her.
Quote #2
Giles decided that his family would spend the holiday with his in-laws instead. I could choose to feel injured, and I do miss my brother if only as someone with whom to mock my mother, but she's getting so frail now at seventy-eight that our patronizing despair on her behalf seems unfair. (11.1)
Here we get our first hint that forgiveness, at least for people like Eva, might be rooted in exhaustion. She's too tired to hold a grudge against her mother, so she begins to forgive her.
Quote #3
For years I wrote off my mother as having no grasp of my life, but after Thursday I came to terms with the fact that I'd made no effort to understand hers. (11.4)
One necessary element to forgiveness is empathy. Eva is able to be more understanding of her mother when she attempts to empathize with her, even if that means she might—*shudder*—become more like her own mother in the process.