“They discontinued Buti Balm.” Other people would have to lose a limb to look that pained. “I had to stock up. Where are you going?”

“To beat the checkered pants off Bob.” Dad waved at us, then disappeared from the frame.

Mom had adjusted her clip-on camera for my father’s sake, so now she was off-center, only one eye showing, growing larger as she scooted closer to her computer. With her mascara running from the heat and humidity, I felt like the eye of Sauron was staring at me. “When did you get there?”

She wanted to know if we’d been talking behind her back.

“Barely walked through the door.”

“How is your broken hip, Anna?” Violet asked her only child.

“Healing. I know better than to walk on the slippery pool deck barefooted.” Mom huffed at her own carelessness. “We should have been back north a week ago.”

My parents lived in Hartford, Connecticut for most of the year and usually drove down to the rehab center in New York when I visited each month. Two obligations with one stone, the pinnacle of practicality. Practicality and predictability were my mother’s highest ideals. Forced changes to schedule threw her off track. She was not one to handle life’s curveballs well.

I felt bad for her. “If Violet needs anything, I can help.” Nobody should have to sit through a three-hour flight with a shattered hip.

“Thank you.” She didn’t wallow in gratitude, but moved straight on to “Now tell me you’re back with Trey.”

“Not if all the men were gone and all the batteries were dead.” I’d read that in a book somewhere and saved it for this moment.

“Avery! How can you be so…” She wanted to say vulgar, but she thought the word vulgar was vulgar, so she delicately trailed off. “Think of your company. When you marry him, between the two of you, you’ll be majority shareholders.”

“I don’t have time to date.”

“Men aren’t attracted to you because you always wear black. At least chuck the pants. Don’t make that face. Men want to see women’s legs.”

“If I ever develop a sudden, burning need to know what men want, I’ll send out an online survey.”

Mom sighed with the exasperation of mothers of disobedient daughters everywhere, as if my thorny impertinence was tearing out the stitches from the fabric of society. “Just pick a dress with sex appeal for that Fast Business interview tomorrow. You never know who’ll see you.”

“It’s a business magazine, Anna.” Violet stepped up to defend me. “Not a mail-order bride catalogue.”

I loved my grandmother with the fire of a mega sun flare, the kind that knocked out the internet and messed up satellites in orbit.