Anne sighs inwardly, the kind of sigh we all heard growing up when the parents didn’t like what we were saying or doing. She doesn’t like what I’m saying. Or doing. She hasn’t liked anything I’ve said about Hawaii—or Kai—since I’ve returned. “It was an island romance,” she says now, evenly, matching me tone for tone. She’s no dummy. She’s a mom, too. Being wives, becoming mothers, has taught us how to deal with unreasonable people.

And that’s what makes the greatest impression now.

She thinks I’m being unreasonable.

Why? Because I want romance? Passion? Adventure?

“If I can afford to go, why shouldn’t I go back?” I look at her levelly, using economics as my first defense. This is something else husbands and children have taught us. Men respond to the financial picture. Men want to know how much it’s going to cost, how much they’re going to lose, how much they’re going to have to work to earn back capital squandered.

You can almost see it in their eyes as you talk to them. Ch-ching, ch-ching, three hours at the office, minus taxes, minus lost investment opportunity, plus disruption of home life, personal inconvenience of possibly having to watch kids or, God forbid, change a diaper himself…

“And of course I’d only go when Daniel has the kids. So it’s not as if I’m hurting anyone,” I conclude, using the kids as my final trump card. Men might respond to the financial picture, but women respond to the relationship picture, with all its emotional ties and entanglements.

Anne doesn’t speak. She just stares at the wall.

She thinks I’m wrong.

And her judgment gets my hackles up. I don’t have to answer to her. I don’t have to answer to anyone anymore.

I’m an adult. A woman. I’ve been to school, earned a degree, had a career, raised babies, paid bills. Why can’t I do what I want? Why do we women feel that we have to answer to one another?

And what’s wrong with feeling good? What’s wrong with having fun?

“I thought you were going to work full-time again.” Anne breaks her pumpkin scone into two pieces and passes half to me. “You said you needed the income—”

“I’m working.”

“You said you needed more clients, that you needed to do some advertising, maybe participate in this year’s Street of Dreams.”

My God. Anne is worse than my mom and my grandmother combined. “I’ve already made inquiries.”

“Jack…”

I feel something inside me sink. Strange emotion prickles the back of my eyes. I know what she wants me to say. I know what she wants me to do. I’m forty. I’m supposed to grow up, be mature, do the responsible thing.