Use your words, I would beg her, and oh yeah, doesn’t that come back to bite me now.

“I really want to, Mom, and why does it have to be only a week? There is nothing in New York that I have to do. I mean, they won’t miss me at the cat shelter, and I can do my summer reading here as well as there, and don’t even think piano, because let’s face it, I’m no Mozart. And anyway, really, don’t we both deserve more than just a week off?”

“Life isn’t about what we deserve,” I say. “It’s about what survival demands. I can’t take time off. I have a job.”

“You said you were cutting back.”

“Not cutting out.”

“Oooo-kay,” Joy says as I had earlier, “so you can go back and I’ll stay. Annie is here, and Papa. The times I wanted to go to summer camp, you wouldn’t let me, but I’m older now, and this is different, Mom. This is Bay Bluff. This is family.”

Softly, I say, “We’ll discuss this later,” and tack on a more urgent, “Please?”

Grinning a grin that smacks of victory, she bobs on the tips of her toes and gives me a quick hug—though I have no idea why, since I am not giving in. And still there’s something akin to triumph in the look she shoots Jack. “I’ll get back to you,” she tells him like a CEO, and she’s the one to lead now, taking my arm, calling back, “BTW, I like your dog!”

We’re at the top of the stairs before I say, “That was not fair, Joy. There’s a whole lot you don’t know.”

“Why are you angry?”

“Because there’s a whole lot you don’t know,” I repeat and pause to let her precede me on the narrow path through the heather.

“So tell me.”

“Jack used to be my best friend. Now he is not.”

This message she gets. “Tell me,” she invites, eyes widening with the salacious interest of a BFF. Only she isn’t my BFF. Well, she is. But she’s also my daughter. And she’s only thirteen. So I really can’t talk about all that.

“Later,” I say, though I hate it when people use that word. Later can mean later. Or it can mean when I feel like it, or I don’t want to, or never. For me, right now, it is all of the above in an I-can’t-deal-with-this way.

“Well, I do like his dog,” Joy remarks.

“That’s fine. That’s allowed.” Hoping we’re over a hump, I come alongside her, link our fingers, and look up at the house. “What do you think of it?”

Following my gaze, she tips her head and considers. “It’s cool. Grand, actually.”