The quilt section in my lap is made of cornflower blue fabric sprigged with tiny daisies. It was a dress I made for Molly to wear to her very first piano recital, back when she was just eight years old. Her first public performance. What a nerve-wracking day that was. I recall her practicing Bach’s “Minuet in G Major” over and over again until it drove Dan out into the yard with the weed-whacker. And I, of course, couldn’t help tuning in on every note. I adjusted my breathing to the rhythm of her playing and when she hesitated—the long, agonizing pause in the fifth bar as she spread her tiny hand over the keys of a big chord—it made me hold my breath until she found the right notes. When she hit the wrong note I would wince and then remind myself not to do that at the recital.

The dress was meticulously put together, every stitch in place with hand-smocking across the bodice, the full skirt crisply ironed. She wore white ankle socks and Mary Janes, her hair held back in a blue band, and she looked like a dark-haired version of Alice in Wonderland.

“I’m not going in.” I can still recall the exact sound of her little-girl voice as she balked at the door to the recital hall. It was an intimidating auditorium, filled with echoes. On the stage, the Steinway crouched like a slumbering black dragon.

“Okay,” Dan said, immediately agreeable. “Let’s go home.” He had come under duress to begin with and was already chafing in his good shoes and starched shirt. He reached up to adjust the bill of the baseball cap that wasn’t there. “Better yet, let’s go for ice cream.”

“We can’t leave,” I said, shooting daggers at him with my eyes. “Look, Moll, your name’s already on the program.” I showed her the printed sheet the piano teacher’s son had given us at the door.

She refused to let go of Dan’s hand. He was her ally and suddenly I was the enemy. We stood on either side of her, locked in a silent tug-of-war.

Not for the first time, it occurs to me that he was always quick to back off while I played the ogre, pushing her into new situations, sometimes against her will. I wonder if I’m doing that now, pushing her across the country to college. Dan, like Travis, would prefer for her to go to the state school.

Elsewhere on the quilt is a rosette of red stretchy fabric from the swimsuit she wore when I delivered her to her first swim lesson. At the YMCA pool, she had clung to me like a remora. Her howl of panic ricocheted around the pool deck, and her slippery, strong little body strained toward the locker room. Dan had rescued her that day, coming out on deck in his board shorts, looking like a hunk on Baywatch as he snatched her up. I was furious with him, but didn’t want to make even more of a scene, so I bit my tongue. He took her by the hand and led her away from the noisy echo chamber of shrieks, punctuated by coaches’ whistles.