These feelings didn’t get any better when Auden interacted with the girls, openly reluctant to be in the presence of Polly in a way that he was clearly trying to hide his aversion to her.

During their visit, we all decided to go out to lunch, with Auden deciding not to join us (this being because he was a teenage boy, not because he didn’t like Polly). He hooked up with his friends, and I enjoyed spending time with Sherry but, alas, this time with Polly only cemented my opinion of her.

For one, she was openly catty about the people around us (mostly the females, their hair, outfits, anything she could note and say something mean about). Sherry attempted to curtail this but didn’t put a lot of effort into that, probably because she didn’t want to embarrass her daughter by remonstrating her in front of her friend and her friend’s mom.

And further, Polly was almost entirely negative about absolutely everything; the food, the temperature of the restaurant, the service.

After we parted ways, I decided it was too soon in my reparation efforts to broach this subject with my daughter, so I didn’t.

I didn’t do this also with the hope that she’d sort herself out. She was a good kid. A smart one. She had good friends back in La Jolla, they were close, had been friends a long time and they were all great kids. She’d been in Magdalene awhile, but she still was in a new place finding her way, and now, doing that her first year of high school.

I just had to trust she’d find the right way.

We came back, had a family dinner and I let them go out with their friends last night.

I got a knock on the door when Pippa got home, through which she’d called, “Mom! I’m back!” and I’d replied, “Good. Hope you had fun!” to which she said, “I did! Goodnight.”

Auden didn’t knock on my door but I stayed up until he got home.

Now, it was morning and, except for Polly, the weekend had been a smashing success and I was still flying.

“What’s this?” Auden asked.

I turned from getting the pancake batter mix down and saw him looking at my laptop.

“Just some research I’m doing on a possible fundraiser I’m thinking about,” I told him.

That was the truth.

However, the specifics included me attempting to find what I thought should be easy to find, though I’d never looked for such things. They were still public records. These being the town of Magdalene’s financial accounts.

I didn’t know what was driving me or if I’d make any sense of what I found when I found it.

I still wanted to know what they allocated to the fire department.