“Does she want to go?”

“Of course she wants to go. What do you take me for?”

It sounded impossible to Joan. She marched right up to Frances’s bedroom. Frances was sitting at her desk, finishing her homework.

“Your mother told me you’re going to Landingham. Is this what you want, babe?”

“Yeah,” Frances said. “Mom says there’s a lot of other kids there. I’d eat dinner with my friends every night.”

Joan looked at her and sighed. How could Joan make any better argument? Frances had been eating dinner alone most nights.

“I’ll have a roommate, which I think will be fun. And we’ll go on field trips all the time. I read in the brochure that we get to go to Washington, D.C., in seventh grade.”

Joan nodded. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

“I’ll miss you, but Mom says that I will be back a lot of the weekends, like every month. And I was thinking maybe a few of them could be at your place?”

“Of course. Of course.”

“I’m excited.”

How had Barbara done this so masterfully? Joan had no way to stop it.

Joan put on a smile. “I know you’re old now, but can I still kiss you on the top of your head?” she asked. “This once?”

Frances laughed and then bent her head down.

Joan kissed the part in Frances’s hair.

“I love you, Frances,” Joan said.

“I love you, too.”

Joan shut the door. She tried to regain her composure before going downstairs.

“So that’s it?” Joan said as she put her hand on the door handle. “The decision has been made? There will be no further discussion?”

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for us. I really do. Like I said, I know I haven’t always made that clear. So thank you. But my child is unhappy. I want her to find a place in the world where she feels she belongs.”

Joan wanted to take her hands and thrust them into Barbara’s shoulders, to knock her down on the ground. She wanted to yell at her. Shake some sense into her. She wanted to go upstairs and tell Frances that she deserved a home where she felt she belonged.

Instead, she gritted her teeth and walked out the door.

The day Frances was leaving for boarding school, Joan woke up in Vanessa’s bed and started crying before she was even alert.

Ever since Frances had been born, Joan had not gone more than ten days without seeing her for at least a few minutes. Now Joan was approaching a future where she saw her only on holidays. Even if this was good for Frances, like Barbara claimed, it would break Joan’s heart to miss her this much.

Vanessa handed Joan a tissue. Joan dried her tears.

“She will be home some weekends,” Vanessa said.