Manfred’s mother, Rain, called on a Sunday afternoon. He should have expected her call, he realized, when he checked the caller ID.

“Hi, Son,” she said brightly. “How’s the new place?”

“It’s good, Mom. I’m mostly unpacked,” Manfred said, looking around him. To his surprise, that was true.

“Got your computers up and running?” she asked, as though she were saying, “Have you got your transmogrifinders working?” That shade of awe. Though Manfred knew for certain that Rain used a computer every day at work, she regarded his Internet business as very specialized and difficult.

“Yep, it’s all working,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, the job is going all right.” A pause. “I’m still seeing Gary.”

“That’s good, Mom. You need someone.”

“I still miss you,” she said suddenly. “I mean, I know you’ve been gone for a while . . . but even so.”

“I lived with Xylda for the past five years,” Manfred said evenly. “I don’t see how much you could miss me now.” His fingers drummed against the computer table. He knew he was too impatient with his mother’s bursts of sentimentality, but this was a conversation they’d had more than once, and he hadn’t enjoyed it the first time.

“You asked to live with her. You said she needed you!” his mother said. Her own hurt was never far below the surface.

“She did. More than you. I was weird, she was weird. I figured it would suit you better if I was with her.”

There was a long silence, and he was very tempted to hang up. But he waited. He loved his mother. He just had a hard time remembering that some days.

“I understand,” she said. She sounded tired and resigned. “Okay, call me in a week. Just to check in.”

“I will,” he said, relieved. “Bye, Mom. Stay well.” He hung up and went back to work. He was glad to answer another e-mail, to respond to a woman who was convinced that he was both talented and discerning, a woman who didn’t blame him forever for doing the obvious thing. In his job, he was nearly omnipotent—he was taken seriously, and his word was seldom questioned.

Real life was so different from his job, and not always in a good way. Manfred tugged absently on his most-pierced ear, the left. It was strange that he seldom got a reading on his mother. And really strange that he’d never realized it before. That was probably significant, and he should devote some time to figuring it out. But not today.

Today, he had money to make.