There, tucked between a pair of cheeky striped undies and a floral pair, I discovered a plastic baggie and lifted it up to the lamplight. Shredded dried leaves, similar to tea leaves but more likely something illegal. No teen hid tea leaves in her underwear drawer.

I’d never smoked pot, had no clue what it looked like in real life, except for the cartoonish marijuana paraphernalia I’d seen on hats and shirts during my 1990s adolescence, when pot was still considered rebellious. Now every stay-at-home mom and even the grandparents had jars of cannabis oil in their cupboards.

I opened the Ziploc bag and sniffed it. Again, no clue what I was smelling or if it was felonious or not. But a baggie hidden in an underwear drawer didn’t scream harmless to me.

As I resealed the bag, Aria walked in, wrapped in a towel, eyes wide with horror.

“Mom, what are you doing with that?” she yelped, snatching it out of my hand.

“The bigger question is what are you doing with . . . whatever this is.”

“It’s not what you think.” She shoved the baggie back in her drawer.

“Honey, I wasn’t born yesterday. Is this pot?”

She hesitated, avoiding my glance. “It’s not a big deal. You know kids my age are doing it all the time.”

“I don’t care what the other kids are doing. I care about what you’re doing.”

“Have you ever done it?”

“Me? God, no. It wasn’t legal back in my day, and none of my friends did it. I didn’t even know anyone who had access to marijuana.” At my high school the rebellious kids were into drinking and general hell-raising, not drugs. Not among my small circle of friends, anyway.

“Not even in college?”

“Ha! Can you imagine your father?” I’d met Owen early on as a freshman and we spent our college years trying to impress each other. “He would have had a fit if I even went near the stuff or anyone associated with it. He probably would have dumped me on the spot.”

“Good old judgy, controlling Dad.”

“Oh, come on. So your father prefers to abide by the law. What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s not that. It’s how he treats you, Mom, controls you—controls all of us—that’s what bothers me.”

“Seriously? You’re giving me grief because I’ve never smoked illegal substances? Do you hear how you sound? I’d prefer you never did them either. They’re a gateway drug to worse, Aria.”

She rolled her eyes and slipped into her pajamas. “See, this is what is so frustrating about you. It’s not about the pot. It’s about you and how you let Dad dictate everything for you. You’re going to judge something you haven’t even tried all because of Dad’s feelings about it.”

“I’m not judging it because of Dad. I’m judging it because I know what drug addiction can lead to.”