“You always try to make everything easier for me. It’s like I live inside this artificial bubble you created. That’s what’s annoying. It’s my time. My life. My turn to screw up and suffer the consequences.”

“Your turn to succeed and be amazing.”

“Whatever. The point is, it’s my turn, Mom. What happened with Travis—just to remind you again, it was my decision. Not yours or Dad’s or even Travis’s. Mine, a hundred percent. Right or wrong, I own it, okay?”

“Of course.”

“So quit worrying.” She’s close to tears, her expression taut with suppressed panic.

My Molly is terrified. She’s afraid she’ll be lonely. Afraid she’ll fail. Afraid she won’t measure up.

“Aw, Moll.”

Her shoulders hunch. “What if I blow it? What if I disappoint you?”

Finally, I know what she needs. Maybe this is the whole point of the past week. She needs to be free of the weight of her parents’ expectations. “That will never happen.”

With a decisive air, she shoves the lamp into a trash can. She looks at me for a long time, her stare penetrating. I try to offer a reassuring smile. She doesn’t smile back. Instead, she says, “I’m worried about you, Mom.”

It’s the last thing I expected to hear. “Worrying is my job.”

“No, I mean it. We’ve had our moments, but you know I think you’re great. The thing that worries me is what you’re going to do now that I’m gone.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll do what I’ve always done.”

“What you’ve always done is be my mom. You need to figure out something else now.”

“There’s nothing to figure,” I say reassuringly. “I have a fulfilling life, great friends, a loving husband. I never defined myself as a mother and nothing else. I have other roles to play.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Lots of things. I just have to figure out which roles to pursue. I’ve been thinking of doing more volunteer work.”

Molly clearly notices my lack of enthusiasm. “You should do something you love.”

What I love is being your mom. I bite my tongue. I will not lay that on her. Setting my jaw until my back teeth ache, I take out her alarm clock and set it to local time.

Soon we’ll be living in different time zones.

“Mom, didn’t you used to say you wanted to finish your degree?”

“Yes, but I put it off when I—”

“You put it off,” Molly prods.

“I was so busy with everything else, it just wasn’t practical. Now it’s not important.”

“Are you sure? When was the last time you thought about it?”

“Say, I’ve got an idea—I could get my degree here, while you’re here. We could even get an apart—”