I can’t be certain, but I suspect that Molly surrendered her virginity at the spillway at some point during the summer, in the secret place known to revved-up teenagers everywhere, tucked into the shadows of the sloping man-made bank. She didn’t tell me so, but there have been subtle signs. I’ve watched her and Travis grow closer, their bond tightened by a private and impenetrable intimacy that is both invisible and obvious.

Sexually active. It’s a clinical-sounding term. It’s nothing a mother wants to think about with regard to her own child, but at some point, you have to take the blinders off. Or not, I suppose, thinking of Dan. Whenever I try to bring the subject up with him, he says, “They’re good kids. They won’t do anything stupid.”

Pointing out that good kids who are not stupid get in trouble all the time doesn’t seem to advance the conversation. I have given up on discussing it with Dan. Now and then, I try to broach the topic with Molly.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry,” she said when I got up the nerve to ask her.

It doesn’t matter what century we’re in. Parents and children were not meant to talk together in detail about sex. Nor should we pretend to be all-knowing experts on love, even if we are. I understand exactly what love feels like in a young girl’s heart because I was that girl once, long ago. That’s why the Travis situation worries me, because I understand. It has a power like the pull of the moon on the tides, overwhelming and inevitable. There is no antidote for the passion and certainty a girl feels for the boy she loves, and no end to the fantasies she spins about their future together.

I can explain convincingly that the emotions engulfing her and Travis are not likely to last. I can tell her they’ll both grow and change, heading off in different directions. But then I would have to talk about my own choices, my own regrets, the many times I spent wondering about the life I would have had if I’d taken a different path.

For a brief moment, I consider telling Molly about Preston Warner, my first and, as far as I was concerned at the time, my only, forever and ever. Senior prom was the kind of magic-filled night every girl dreams about and, in my case, the dream came true. I wore something blue and silky; Preston was slicked-down, tux-clad and nervous. Not only did we consummate our relationship that night, we pledged to stay true forever, even though Preston was going far away to college.

That night, I surrendered not just my virginity but all my hopes and dreams, handing them over to a boy who—though I didn’t realize it at the time—had no idea what to do with them. So he did what guys his age generally do. Three months into his first semester at a trendy private school a day’s drive away, he started dating other people. When I found out, I wanted to die. I walked around like a zombie, every bit of happiness having bled from my broken heart.