A small, almost apologetic-looking sign in the window says “Business for sale.” Minerva, the shop owner, is retiring and she’s been looking for a buyer since the previous Christmas. She’s told all her customers that if it’s not sold by the new year, she’ll simply close its doors. This option is looking more and more likely. It’s hard to imagine someone with the kind of passion and energy it takes—not to mention the capital—to run a small shop. Once the store is cleared to the bare walls, it will look like a blight on our town’s main street, a missing tooth in the middle of a smile. On top of Molly going away, it’s another blow.

Across the street is a trendy clothing boutique where Molly has spent many an hour—and many a dollar—agonizing over just the right look. As she was trying on jeans the other day, a debate ensued. Do girls on the East Coast wear skinny jeans or boot cut? Do they even wear hoodies? As if I would know these things. When she began worrying about what to wear, I realized that everything was getting very real for Molly. For a girl who has never lived anywhere else, this is a huge step. Now that we’re on the road, she is facing the reality that college is an actual place, not just a display of glossy pictures in a catalog. I want to tell her not to be afraid, but I suspect the advice wouldn’t be welcome.

Navigating the ungainly Suburban up the ramp to the interstate, Molly fiddles with the radio, but it’s all talk so she switches it off. We’ve got our iPods if we’re desperate for music.

From the grim look on Molly’s face as she cranes her neck to check the rearview mirror, it’s clear that she knows I was right about the lamp taking up too much space. I can’t help thinking what I won’t allow myself to say: I told you so.

Agitated, I put on my discount-store reading glasses—the ones that perch on my nose and make me look like a schoolmarm. Another visible rite of passage. For me, the moment occurred a few years back, when I turned thirty-nine-and-a-half. I was in a gift shop, trying to read a sale tag, and suddenly my arm wasn’t quite long enough to make out the price.

A sales clerk offered me a pair of reading glasses, and the fine print came into focus. The fact that the glasses had cute faux-Burberry frames offered scant comfort. At first, I was a bit embarrassed to put them on around Dan and Molly, but when you love needlework and crossword puzzles as much as I do, you swallow your pride.

I open the canvas quilt bag and the project spills across my lap. The oval hoop frames a section made of a calico maternity blouse I wore while carrying Molly. I stab the needle in, telling myself it’ll be finished soon enough, one stitch after another. The needle flashes in and out like a little silver dart.