Her shoulders relaxed. “Oh! Sure, why would I care if he comes and stays? That’s pretty cool he lives close. He can probably—” She stopped, squinting hard at me. “Wait. Mom, are you guys hooking up?”

I tried not to laugh at the simple way teenagers viewed things. It would have been so much easier to engage in a fun hookup, then leave without a backward glance. Instead, he’d managed to crash through the wall I usually had around me, and now my heart was involved. “We’re very good friends,” I said firmly. “And we like each other a lot.”

She gave a delighted giggle. “Deny all you want, Mom, but I know you hooked up! I suspected something going on between you—the way he stared when he didn’t think anyone was looking? Very romantic. Why would you think I’d be mad? I’ve been wanting you to date forever.”

I blinked, stunned. “You have? I figured you didn’t want anyone to take me away from you.”

She shook her head. “No, you don’t get it. You live at your office, or on your computer or your phone. You’re never here. Remember my tennis game at the finals? I made the game-winning point and looked for you, and you were gone because you had to take a call from work? God, I hate tennis! I only did it because you kept pushing me, and you didn’t care enough to even stay for the whole game?”

Guilt assaulted me. I remembered well. I’d felt awful, especially when everyone watching congratulated my daughter on her amazing play, and she’d gazed at me with a bit of hate in her eyes. But it wasn’t hate. I knew that now. It was disappointment. “I’m sorry, honey. I do remember.”

“That’s the kind of stuff I can’t handle. The way you treat people like they’re disposable.” Her voice came out soft, filled with layers of tension that had built over the years. I didn’t look away from her pain. I was the cause. It was time I dealt with it. “I used to dream that you’d find a cool guy to date and love and get married. We’d be a family. And he’d be able to do what I couldn’t.”

My throat tightened. “What?”

She shrugged, but I caught the stiffness of her shoulders, as if bracing for a war. “Make you happy.”