A: Would your daughter come home for your birthday next week?

B: She said she would be extremely busy and mostly probably wouldn’t come back, but I’m hoping against hope she’ll change her mind.

Note: This idiom means “to continue to hope for something even though it seems unlikely to happen.” The phrase derives from the Bible (Romans 4:18): Saint Paul is writing about Abraham, “Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken.”