Tegan turns the ring on her middle finger. “Actually, I’d like to hear your side of the story first. Can you tell me why you didn’t want me to meet him?”

I tell her everything. That I fell in love with my professor, got pregnant, and that he blackmailed me into changing schools.

Tegan nods along, her eyes getting watery as she listens to the story. When I’m finished, we’re both crying.

She hugs me again, saying, “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Don’t be, honey, it wasn’t your fault.”

“No, I know, but whenever you said my father wasn’t worth my pinky toe and I was better off without him, I thought you were exaggerating, that you were angry. But you were right. He’s not worth our grief.”

“Oh, baby, what happened today?”

“He denied everything. Claimed you were obsessed with him and must’ve invented the entire story. Then he added that he was sorry, he didn’t know who my father was, but it absolutely wasn’t him.”

I’ve meant no one harm in my entire life, but that man is getting dangerously close.

“And how did you respond?” I ask, trying to keep calm, fighting the urge to rent a car and drive to Boston in the middle of the night to punch the bastard in the face.

“All I could think was that our eyes are the same color. It was freakish to stare at him; like looking in the mirror.”

“Yes, you have the same eyes.”

“Do you hate to see him in me?”

I push a lock of hair behind her ear. “No, sweetheart, I love everything about you. You’re the only good thing that man ever gave me.”

“I called him a liar,” Tegan admits.

“How did he react to that?”

“He said the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and that I was just as crazy as you, and then he threatened me. Told me never to apply to Harvard and that, if I did, he’d make sure I wouldn’t get in.”

Man, he’s lucky he’s two hundred miles away from me right now.

“I’m sorry he said those things, honey. But I promise you, if you want to go to Harvard, we’ll find a way. Don’t be scared.”

“I’m not scared, Mom, I’m angry. He blackmailed you and threatened me. My father is a bully, and now he’s in a position of even more power. What if we’re not the only women he’s mistreated?”

“What are you saying, baby?”