“I mean, I guess . . . I don’t know.” I looked at her forehead and now I just felt bad. “I don’t recognize my mom anymore. That’s my point. She looks totally different. She is totally different. I caught her sexting someone the other day. She’s online dating now.”

“What did she used to be like?” she asked.

“Not like this. Not someone with such big hair who reads these trite, motivational books that tell you you can be a millionaire overnight if you step into your personal purpose, and who believes in conspiracy theories about world governments trying to control us with radio waves and stuff like that,” I rattled off. “She’s ridiculous. She’s like this caricature of herself.”

Vicki rose to her feet and adjusted her big yellow sun hat.

“She sounds very lost. She’s looking for something,” she said quietly.

“Lost?” I closed my book angrily. I didn’t agree with this statement. My mother wasn’t lost, she was very much found and in your face.

“Sounds like she’s lonely and desperately searching for meaning. Sounds like she’s lost trust in people and the world around her.” Vicki took a step closer to me.

“And how do you come to that conclusion?” A flicker of inexplicable anger flared inside me. I’d wanted Vicki to agree with me, tell me how ridiculous my mom was, not paint her as some sort of poor victim.

“People who bury themselves in self-help and motivational books are often searching for meaning in their lives. People who readily jump to believe in every conspiracy theory out there are distrustful of the people and world around them. They see the world as a dangerous place that is out to get them.”

I stared at Vicki and then blinked at her rapidly, feelings of irritation and anger swirling inside me.

“Have I told you about cactuses yet?”

I rolled my eyes at her. “No.”

She smiled. “Brace yourself.”

I folded my arms and sat back in the chair, waiting for this new plant analogy to drop.

“There’s this thing you can do with them, called grafting. You cut a piece of one species off and then stick it onto a wounded part of another cactus species and it starts growing again.”

“Sorry, what?”

She walked over to a small wall, picked up a pot and then placed it on the table in front of me. I stared at the strange thing. A long, straight, green cactus looked completely disproportionate with a bulbous purple ball growing from the top of it, and off that, things that looked like feelers reached up. It looked like a Frankenstein creature that had been pieced together crudely.

“All these different pieces are from different plants, that have just been put together?” I pointed at it.