“The lawyers say that—”

“I don’t care what the lawyers say, Mom.” I feel hot all over and icy at my back, like thinking about a fever has brought one on. “I need to talk.”

“I…I…Chloe, I don’t even know what to say. I messed up. Real bad. I have never been so scared. I didn’t know,” she says. And the echo of my own words, I didn’t know, the shallowness of them, makes me realize anger can be cumulative. I feel layered in rage, like coats of paint.

“You didn’t know what? That this could all blow up in our faces? That you could go to jail? Which part didn’t you know?”

“I didn’t know it could…I’m scared of saying too much—”

“Are you serious?”

“You could be subpoenaed. I don’t want you to have to lie. Listen, I don’t want to make any more mistakes.” She licks an errant drop of ice cream off her fingertip, and I notice her nails are chipped. Of course, she didn’t make her weekly mani-pedi appointment. I examine her more closely. Look for signs of other maintenance slipping. I grab the spoon again, more aggressively than necessary, and take another bite.

“Let me put it this way: Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve done for you. Because I thought it was what was best. For you.” Her chin wobbles, and her face is wet.

“No,” I say.

“It’s true. I love you, Chlo. Nothing matters except for you and Isla.” She pauses. Lining up her delivery, trying a different tack. “And, of course, Ben and Jerry.”

“This isn’t funny. This is not a late-night show where you have to be charming. This is our lives!”

“I know. I’m trying to explain—”

“Don’t you dare pretend any of this was for me.” It takes me a beat to realize I’m yelling. I don’t care. I point the spoon right in my mother’s beautiful, perfect, sagging face. “This was for bragging rights. So you wouldn’t be embarrassed by me. Don’t you dare lie.”

She shakes her head, and she looks like her Missy bobblehead doll. Big-eyed, unhinged.

“That’s not…It wasn’t—”

“Everything was a lie.”

“I love you,” she says. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“This isn’t about whether you love me, Mom.”

“But it is. That’s exactly what it’s about. I love you. That’s my job. And you are almost all grown. While I can, I need to do what I can, anything I can to—”

I pick up the ice cream container and throw it hard against the wall. It falls to the floor, bounces once, and lands near my mother’s feet. Nothing spills. She picks it up and hands it back to me.