Apparently not, because he ducks back out, returning to the basket of food he’s packing for the day. I love how much he loves to cook, especially because it is in direct proportion to how much I hate it.

I hear him mumble something quietly, and then Phoebe comes in, taking a leap and soaring onto the pile of clothes in the middle of the comforter.

“When are we going to the Bojangles garden?”

I plant a kiss on her forehead. “Botanical. And we’re leaving in . . .” I glance at the clock on the nightstand. “Oof, twenty minutes.”

“I like what you’re wearing,” she says, waving vaguely in my direction. “Daddy says it’s wasteful when I change clothes too often.”

There are moments I feel it’s my job to impart some sort of feminist wisdom to Phoebs, but, as usual, Sean’s way ahead of me.

Having lost interest in my fashion dilemma, she flops over dramatically. “I’m hungry.”

“Want me to get you something? There were some strawberries earlier.”

She wrinkles her nose. “No thanks, I’ll ask Daddy.”

She stands, just as Sean calls from the other room, having heard us, “I’ve got a banana you can eat, Applejack. All the strawberries are already packed up for the picnic.”

And before I get any more of her, Phoebe is already out the door and back in the other room. When I think about it, I’ve had maybe a half hour with her this entire week. I always tell myself that just having a Mom Presence is a big deal for her, but as we’ve just witnessed, am I even that? And does she need it? I half wonder whether what Sean mumbled to her before she came in was a reminder that she needs to make me feel welcome here, and to come say hi.

God, I’m being ridiculous. But really, Sean and Phoebe seem entirely self-sufficient as a little twosome. I never felt that way about me and Dad. We loved each other, of course, but without Mom we were both sort of lost, arms outstretched as we tried to fumble through each day.

For about the millionth time I wonder about Ashley, and what kind of wife she must have been to Sean, back during a time before he was the hot new artist in San Francisco, when he was still just a starving artist, marrying a woman on her way to MBA stardom in finance. I know Phoebe came before they’d planned to have kids, and when Ashley was still climbing the ladder. Was she ever home? Did Sean raise little Phoebe, hands-on every second until she started school, the way Mom raised me?

How would my life be different if Dad had been home more when I was little? How would it have been different if he died when I was ten, not Mom?

I feel sick at the thought, as if I’ve just wished for some alternate reality that would kill my father first. Guilt-stricken, I say a quiet “I didn’t mean it” to the air around me, wanting to take back whatever bad thing I might have just thrown out. Even though he’s already gone, too.