“You’re not going to hurt it,” Alice Rayburn said as she approached Lina, who was carefully pruning an azalea bush. “Your technique is fine. You can go twice as fast.”

“Is it already noon?” Lina turned from the bush, wiping her hands on her shorts as she faced her mother.

“No. I’m a few minutes early.”

“Where are you taking her?” For the past several months her mother had been taking Katie out for lunch on Saturdays. Even during Katie’s darkest period, when she went days without speaking to Lina and Phil, she never shut out her grandmother.

“I don’t know. It’s her turn to choose.” Tall and thin, with long, dark hair sprinkled with strands of gray, piercing hazel eyes her daughters and grandchildren often believed could see right into their souls and a tan complexion earned from hours in the sun tending to her vegetable garden, Alice looked like a throwback from the sixties. “She wants to spend the night.”

“You know that can’t happen,” Lina said.

“Why can’t it happen? It’s been over twenty years, for heaven’s sake.”

“Don’t.” Lina shook her head. “Just drop it, please. Phil’s coming over to your place after Logan’s game to fix your faucet, so he can bring her home.”

To Lina’s surprise, Alice didn’t belabor the point, instead launching into a discourse on the astrological compatibility of Adele and her ex-boyfriend. “They had three trines and two sextiles. If she really wanted a relationship it could have worked. She may regret letting him go.”

Lina began pruning again, only half listening as her mother used her forty-five years of astrological experience to theorize on Adele’s inability to stay committed to a man, pointing out specific aspects in her chart that would have to be overcome if she were interested in having a long-term relationship.

“Wait—could you repeat that?” Lina asked several minutes later when she realized Alice was no longer talking about Adele.

“I said your chart shows a heightened risk of infidelity for the next year, so you need to keep your guard up.”

“Heightened risk of infidelity for who?” The phone calls from the previous night flashed through her mind. “Were you looking at me or Phil?” She didn’t normally give any weight to astrology, but every now and then her mother’s rambling struck a chord, and she hated the part of her that still believed.

“You. I’m not saying you’re going to act on it, but your chart shows a new love interest. Your moon is in Jupiter, and there’s opposition in your seventh house, which is you and Phil, so be on guard.”

Lina rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ll be on guard.”

“Just because something is in your chart doesn’t mean you’ll act on it. It just shows you’ll have the opportunity.”

“I’m not cheating on Phil, Mom!”

“You don’t have to get defensive.”

“Well, it’s ridiculous.”

“I’m just telling you what I see.”

“Can we talk about something else, please? I don’t want to waste another second on something that’s never going to happen.”