She crumpled a tissue. “I was clueless. About creating a family. It’s a challenge under the best of circumstances. If you do it right, it’s daunting, you have to put in time, personal investment, doubting yourself. Educating yourself. You can’t just read books or dial it in, you can’t just delegate it to other people. So I decided to do it right and changed my life.”

She swiveled toward me. “Big insight to a psychologist, huh? But what did I know? Not that I’m some Suzy Housewife baking cookies. Keep me away from kitchens, keep me far away if you value your intestinal tract. And I know I’m lucky, I can pay people to do things I don’t want to do. But actually raising my children? The real stuff? That’s my job.”

She smiled. “Listen, I’m not some martyr, claiming I gave it all up for them. I lost nothing, gained everything. They bring me meaning every day, the other stuff never did. Now the thought of blabbing someone else’s lines makes me want to throw up.”

I kept silent.

“You think I’m a burned-out weirdo?”

“I think you’ve moved on.”

“Well,” she said, “whether you mean it or not, you say the right things—sorry, I tend to be a little cynical.” More hair fluffing, more ciliary rain. “So they seemed well adjusted to you?”

“They did.”

“Did you expect spoiled monsters?”

“I didn’t know what to expect, Prema.”

“Aw c’mon, ’fess up, Dr. Delaware, you had to have a little bit of expectation, no? Crazy Hollywood mom, crazy kids? But trust me, no way that was going to happen. No way they were going to have a childhood like mine. I don’t believe—I refuse to believe that we’re condemned to repeat our own crap.”

My personal mantra. When things got low I congratulated myself for not ending up like Harry Delaware.

I said, “If I didn’t agree, I wouldn’t do this job.”

Prema Moon’s eyes watered up again. The tissue had wadded so tightly it disappeared in her fist. “I don’t know why I’m getting into this. Why I feel the need to justify myself to you.”

I said, “It’s normal to feel judged in a situation like this.”

“You followed us. That was based on a judgment. What’s going on?”

“I’ve been trying to learn about you and your family. Haven’t been very successful because you’ve dropped off the grid. When families isolate themselves, it’s often because of serious problems and that’s what I suspected. I know now that you’ve been trying to take control of your life, are focused on protecting the kids. For good reason. You know that better than anyone.”