I left the two of them alone. I didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t my mother, my real mother. She was only motherly to me in fits and starts, and always in an amused and distant way. But she had chosen me, singled me out for her attention and instruction. Just as, years ago, she had chosen to leave her own child behind.

It was funny that I didn’t feel anywhere near as bad about my dad, about how he’d pretty much checked out of our lives. He called on birthdays and holidays, sent cards with money, and we talked about getting together, and maybe we would one of these days. But I didn’t think too much about his absence. Maybe this was the difference between mothers and fathers. Maybe because among people I knew, fathers were often absent. Or maybe mothers weren’t meant to leave just to write poetry.

When I got back to the waiting room, Barb had joined Oscar. “He’s going to wait for the doctor,” I told them. “She’s still asleep.”

Barb said, “I don’t suppose there’s anything we can do about that.” She meant Boone, his being here.

“What do you have against him?”

Oscar said. “He’s got some grievance. A chip on his shoulder.”

“I guess he’s entitled to have grievances.” What was it about Viridian that made us all so jealous of our places next to her?

Barb said. “And she doesn’t need to be reminded of things that are over and done with.”

“You don’t get to be over and done with your own child.”

“You wouldn’t think,” Barb said, in a way that shut me up and made me feel hopelessly young and unschooled and shallow, with a simplistic and sentimental worldview unsuited to the rigors of high art. I was back to disliking Barb.

But maybe it wasn’t over and there would still be some time left for the two of them, Boone and Viridian, to connect, or reconnect, or come to whatever peace might be possible between them. That was only one of the things we didn’t know. Barb and Oscar were back to talking about Into the Woods and how different possibilities might play out. It was scheduled to begin in four days. In three, I would drive to Sacramento to meet up with my counterpart, Gil, and see just what I’d gotten myself into.

Oscar said, “I’m betting it’s no big deal. One of those little medical hiccups.”

Barb gave him a look, meaning, we can only hope so. Barb said, “If she does go to the conference, we have to help her. Watch out for her.”

“Which she’ll hate,” Oscar said.

“She’ll put up with it if it’s the only way she can be there.”