Alana tries not to laugh at her. Eleven is a tough age. She remembers. Although she had it considerably tougher than her daughter, so it’s hard not to be amused by the constant drama.

They pull away slowly from the light (“Ugh, you drive like such an old lady, Mom.”) and after a couple of turns, pull into the driveway of the house where Grace’s dad, Peter, lives. It’s 4,000 square feet stuffed between the property lines in a new development in San Diego. Her ex-husband stands in the driveway, next to his BMW. (At least it’s not a Tesla.)

He looks at his watch. Alana checks the clock. She’s five minutes early. This is just his usual performance.

She gets out of the car. Grace slides out of the back seat, then gives her a surprisingly fierce hug before running over to her father. Peter looks perfect as usual, crisp chinos and polo shirt, the All-American Dad. He bends over and wraps Grace in a bear hug and kisses her repeatedly on the head, which causes her to gag and struggle. At least Alana isn’t the only one who gets that response.

Peter loves Grace with all his heart. Alana would never dispute that. Unfortunately, that’s about the only pure compliment that Alana can pay him these days. He doesn’t resemble the man she married in any other way. He was a floppy-haired English major when they met in college. He wrote her poems. He listened, and more importantly, he believed her when she told him some of the things she’d survived as a kid. (Not all. Some. That was enough.)

But they were both too young. In their twenties, Peter changed. He got sick of living on noodles and rice while doing research for his PhD and switched to law school. Now he works for a big firm, defending even bigger corporations.

Alana judged him for it. She was raised to slay dragons, not defend them.

But they might have worked it out, if not for Grace. If Alana is being completely honest — which she always is — it was Grace that ended their marriage, not that she’d ever say it out loud, not even under torture.

They waited a long time to have a child. He wanted kids from the start. She was the one who wasn’t sure. When she finally gave in, she discovered she loved her daughter more than anyone in the world, and that included her husband. Peter became sadly, but inevitably, irrelevant. She paid less and less attention to him, until one day he wasn’t there at all anymore. That was why their marriage ended.

Well. That, and he was fucking his assistant.