“Is that why you told me we’d never be a success?”

“I was angry.” She chewed thoughtfully on a crouton. “I get childish when I’m hurt. I own it and I’m sorry.”

Marissa had to swallow hard before she could speak. “I didn’t know you were hurt like that. I thought it was just . . . disappointment in me. That it was always me not meeting your standards. From my waistline to my friends to my career.”

“Do you blame me for some of my reservations about what you were doing with your life? You gave up that good, meaningful job at the women’s clinic for what looked like a pipe dream with Octavia. You work nonstop and never seem to sleep or spend any time on yourself. You never seemed happy to me.”

Her mother, tears swimming in her eyes, waited until her salad plate was taken away before she finished. “I thought you and Octavia were a couple and you weren’t telling me that either.”

“We’re not a couple.” Now was not the time to divulge her senseless crush, especially if it was finally waning. It was hard enough not to sob openly into her napkin. “You were successful and brilliant and elegant. I never felt as if you thought I could be any of those things. Don’t you think I’m strong enough to be successful in life?”

“Oh, ’Rissa . . . I didn’t realize.”

They both wiped away tears over their trout and steamed veggies. “Lemon juice is gross,” Marissa pronounced, after sniffling.

“What brought that on?”

“Diet books are full of lies and I think the biggest is that vegetables with just lemon juice and a bit of pepper are delicious and satisfying.”

“But lemon juice and pepper are delicious,” her mother protested. “Just what we need.” She signaled the waiter, who was promptly solicitous.

“My daughter and I require hollandaise sauce. Is there any available?”

“Of course,” he said. His pace was decorous as usual as he departed on his quest.

“Mom, I can’t eat hollandaise.”

“Of course you can. It’s lemon juice and pepper.”

“With butter and egg yolk.”

“And those vegetables will be delicious tossed in one or two teaspoons. How much damage is that to your diet?”

“I’ve been so careful. I don’t want to mess it up.” Marissa stubbornly ate a piece of unvarnished broccoli. Oh, yummy, she thought. I am so loving the flavor of this. “I am a grown woman. And I’m sitting here obsessing about whether I can have a freakin’ saltine. You’re thin. This is the thing that hurts me that you can’t possibly understand.”

Fresh tears sprang to her eyes. She felt very vulnerable all of a sudden. Her mother was not behaving in the ways Marissa expected and the difference was deeply unsettling, even if it was for the better. How could she tell her mother, of all people, how frustrated she was that her hard work at the gym and faithful adherence to near starvation wasn’t doing much for her waistline? Her mother would only say she wasn’t doing something right.