“The thing is, there’s something I want to talk to you about. Are you even listening?”

Lily had been miles away but she nodded anyway.

“There’s something I need to tell you. And if you don’t like it, that’s your problem, there’s nothing I can do about it. But you need to hear me out before you start going mental, OK?”

Lily felt the color drain from her cheeks. “What is it? What do you need to tell me?” Her voice had emerged a couple of tones higher than usual.

“OK, so here’s the thing. I’ve been seeing someone for a while now. Just over a year, in fact. Sam. Their name’s Sam. What I mean to say is . . . her name is Sam. She’s a girl. The person I’m seeing is a girl. The thing I’m trying to tell you is that I’m gay.”

Stories began rewriting themselves in Lily’s head, scenes from Phoebe’s adolescence slotting into place like in a game of Tetris.

“Are you going to say something or are you just going to stand there, staring at me?”

Lily understood that she had to speak, that she needed to find the right words and deliver them in the right order, and scrabbled frantically for an appropriate response. “You’re sure?”

The moment she asked the question, Lily knew it was the wrong one. She prepared herself to apologize, to blame her crass response on the unexpectedness of it all, but Phoebe was already talking.

“Yes, I’m sure. Do you really think I’d be telling you if I wasn’t? What do you think this is? Some kind of passing fad I’ll recover from with the right vitamins? For God’s sake, I’ve just told you I’m gay and all you can do is ask me if I’m sure.”

“I’m sorry, darling, I’m really sorry. That came out all wrong. I didn’t mean it like that.” If in doubt, apologize. It was the only useful lesson Lily had taught herself since Phoebe had hit adolescence.

“So what did you mean?”

Lily needed time to think, to rehearse the words before she released them into the world, but Phoebe was glaring at her. “I just meant . . . I just want you to have a happy life, that’s all.”

“Happy? What’s that supposed to mean? Can’t gay people be happy? What is this—the nineteenth bloody century?”

“I didn’t mean that, you know I didn’t. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“So what did you mean? What ‘happy life’ are you talking about?”

Lily paused. Sometimes in conversations with Phoebe she could feel her daughter pulling her toward a flaming pyre of disagreement and however hard she tried to rein them both back to safety, Phoebe’s grasp was always stronger. “You know what I mean. You’re being deliberately obtuse.”

“No, I’m not. It’s not like I’m choosing to be gay as some kind of lifestyle statement. What exactly do you mean by being ‘happy’ anyway? Do you mean happy like our family?”