Feeling unsettled, I watch Molly walking down the road, hands in her back pockets. Suddenly she looks very small and alone to me, and the urge to protect her—from what? Who knows?—rises up strong in me. Soon I won’t be around to protect her. But she has to go.

And as for me, I have to let her. After that, I have to figure out how to be my own person again.

“What’s that look?” Molly asks, returning from her walk and sitting beside me at the picnic table.

“I don’t have a look.”

“Come on. Spill.”

“Just thinking of this huge change. It feels so sudden.”

“It’s not like we didn’t see it coming.”

“I know. And this is what I wanted. I wanted to raise a child. And I did, I raised a wonderful child. But now you’re leaving.”

“Mom.” She offers a sweet, ironic smile. “That’s the whole point.”

“Well, I just wish someone had told me how hard it is to let go.”

“Did you think it would be easy?”

“Of course not.” The needle darts again, in and out of the quilt.

“A little bird once told me you shouldn’t avoid doing something just because it’s hard.”

My exact words, only I’d probably said them to her in order to get her to go off the diving board or eat a portobello mushroom.

“If you go away and screw up,” I blurt out, “how will I help you fix it?” I am instantly horrified. What a stupid thing to say. An apology rushes up through me. It came out all wrong. I shouldn’t have said that.

Before I can babble out I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, Molly bursts out laughing. “News flash, Mom. It’s not your job to fix it.”

I laugh with her, but I can’t help the next thought that pops into my head: Then what is my job?

* * *

We spend longer than we intended at the roadside park. It’s so pretty and the air feels so good. When the breeze shifts just so, I can sense the forward march of the season, and I can see it in the crowns of the distant trees in the high elevations, which are starting to turn.

Molly seems preoccupied. I wonder if she’s thinking about what lies ahead—or what she left behind. Her phone calls and text messaging with Travis have decreased in frequency, which I take to be a good sign. She is driving while I keep doggedly working on the quilt, and she is fixated on the posted distance to the city. “Only forty more miles,” she says. “Hard to believe we’re finally that close.”

My needle slides through the fabric, paying homage to a swatch of old flannel from Dan’s pajamas, something she probably doesn’t even remember. But I do and suddenly I miss the feel of his arms around me, the sound of his breathing, calm and steady. I think about his warmth and his scent as he sleeps beside me. I miss him. If he were here, he’d make me say exactly what’s on my mind. No use bottling it up.