In the movie “His Three Daughters,” Carrie Coon’s character, Katie, has rigid ideas about who her sisters are and what they’re capable of. When the women reunite to care for their dying father, those ideas become a barrier to true connection and care for each other.

In this episode, Coon reads the Modern Love essay “A Family Label, Ungarbled” by Harriet Brown. Growing up, the author was never sure she could feel real love. It took breaking out of her mother’s ideas of her, and the birth of her daughter, to learn what love meant. Coon relates the essay to her own experience, describing her early dating life as tumultuous and recalling relationships she continued out of pity rather than love. Until one day, Coon got a letter from her grandmother that changed everything.

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“Modern Love” is hosted by Anna Martin and produced by Reva Goldberg, Emily Lang, Davis Land, Amy Pearl and Sara Curtis. The show is edited by Gianna Palmer and Jen Poyant, our executive producer. Production management is by Christina Djossa. The show is mixed by Daniel Ramirez and recorded by Maddy Masiello and Nick Pitman. It features original music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, Marion Lozano and Rowan Niemisto. Our theme music is by Dan Powell.

Special thanks to Larissa Anderson, Dahlia Haddad, Lisa Tobin, Brooke Minters, Sawyer Roque, Daniel Jones, Miya Lee, Mahima Chablani, Nell Gallogly, Jeffrey Miranda, Isabella Anderson, Christine Nguyen, Reyna Desai, Jordan Cohen, Victoria Kim, Nina Lassam and Julia Simon.

Thoughts? Email us at modernlovepodcast@nytimes.com.

Want more from Modern Love? Read past stories. Watch the TV series and sign up for the newsletter. We also have swag at the NYT Store and two books, “Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss and Redemption” and “Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less.”