Like Vicky. Her daughter. Whoever Vicky had been at any given moment, she, Debi, had accepted it. When Vicky wanted to be a bookworm and wear those big cloddy boots and memorize everything about the French Revolution and always be tidying up the house and scrubbing the toilets and whatnot, she’d been like: Go for it, kiddo, I accept you. When Vicky wanted to mow the lawn because the parade was this weekend, and the whole town would see how long their grass was (as if that were a thing), have at it, amiga, even though you’re only, like, eight, reach way up and dig in with your cloddy boots and push that big heavy mower, I won’t be embarrassed about it at all.

Whatever Vicky had wanted to be, that had been fine with her.

Only wouldn’t it have been cool if what Vicky had wanted to be was a less subservient, more out-there type of girl, so self-assured that nothing ever threw her? Somehow she’d gotten stuck with the wrong kid. Which made for some tension. Vicky was so uptight. Everything had to be perfect. Like once Vicky brought over this nice young guy, Dan, and she, Debi, made them mac and cheese, but there was no milk, as she’d been getting the runaround from Phil, or maybe it was Clive, and was a little distracted and hadn’t been to the store in a week or two, so she made it with strawberry yogurt, and the kids declined to eat it, and she pointed out (just being honest) that they must be a couple of pretty privileged humans if they were turning up their noses at what would pass, in ninety percent of the world, for a fucking feast, and at the F-word Dan (the son of surgeons) had blanched or blushed or whatever and Vicky had started stuttering, and all that time, Vicky—she remembered this in particular, this detail being so classically Vicky (big self-sabotager)—had kept her retainer on, like a harmonica holder. With a boy over! What was that about?

So, yes: tense. Tense between them. Tenser and tenser. Finally, senior year, Vicky had pulled this really skillful tension-release move. Of bolting. Running off. With that little punk Al Fowler and his stringbean cousin. Al came back a few months later, said they’d left her in Phoenix, she was being a total bitch.

Two weeks after that, a postcard: “Ma, I’m fine, don’t try find me.”

And that was that.

Thirty-two years ago.

Not a word since.

Swep.

It was what it was.