“I’ll make tea,” I say, starting toward the cabin. Knowing, I cannot act against her, but I hope she will choose the other way, run back to the city and her home, wherever it is; but no, she follows me. I suppose there can be no choice now, for either of us. So many things have been like that.

I put on the kettle while she sits at my old round wooden kitchen table. I find a second cup, packed away on a high shelf, and although she is taller than I, she does not offer to reach it for me. She is still frightened of me, wary.

I am not used to being watched. I am clumsy with the tea, pour it awkwardly. I feel I am being asked to perform, to be someone for this person who is daughter. There is a familiarity about the feeling, a sensation shooting back into memory, although I can’t say precisely where it was before. There is nothing to do then but sit down, so I do, heavily, longing for something different, wanting to be peacefully back in the garden, alone. She is looking at me, sad, expecting something. What?

“Why are you here?” I ask finally. There seems to be a rhythm missing from the question, as if I should soften it by asking it again in a different way, but I leave it as it is.

“I’m old enough,” she answers. There is a pause, as if she thinks I will understand that. She is holding her cup with one hand, running the forefinger of the other hand around and around the edge at the top, looking down, watching the finger as if it explains everything. Finally she goes on.

“I wanted to know where you’d gone. I wanted to know why it happened. Daddy said to wait, he said to leave you alone because that was what you wanted, but I’m old enough now, I figure I have rights too, and they’re as important as yours.” This last is defiant, hostile, as if I might disagree and say she has no rights. But then, what else would she think, after all?

“It was hard to find you,” she continues. “Daddy wouldn’t tell me anything. It took me six months.” She glances at me, asking me to appreciate her investment, her effort.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It never occurred to me that you would want to find me.” I shrug. “I guess I assumed too much.”

“Just what did you assume, Mother? What did you think you knew about us?” She is openly angry now, not frightened, but there is pain in her voice. “What the hell would ever make you think I wouldn’t go looking the first moment I could for a mother I can hardly remember? I wanted to know why you left me. That’s all, just the reason why you left me.”