She clears her throat and turns and bustles back into her own room, crossing quickly to the closet to retrieve her own long black dress. I entertain Abby as Mom pulls her straight blond hair into a simple chignon, briskly applies a minimal layer of makeup, spritzes her wrists with perfume, and, finally, steps into her dress.

She looks beautiful and classic and fierce. But that’s how she always looks. Whenever I picture her in the operating room, it’s the same.

She’s flawless.

Except, I think, for this one glaring flaw that almost nobody knows about.

“Zip me?” she asks.

I hurry around behind her to zip the dress.

“Is it all right?” she asks.

“It’s great. Ruthie picked a good one.”

Abby appears at Mom’s hip and gazes up at her adoringly. “I wish Poppy were here. His eyes would go boing, seeing you so pretty, Mom.”

She spins away, twirling in her own sky-blue gauzy sundress, her curls long and loose around her heart-shaped face.

“Yeah, Mom,” I echo. “Don’t you wish Pop was here?” I wonder if she actually called him today, like I told her to. And if she called him, what did she say?

“Of course I do,” Mom says.

I hate the way she smiles just then. A secret smile. It makes me want to tell her that I know.

That smile isn’t for Pop.

But I’m learning to stuff the secret down inside me. I can manage it. I can pretend.

Mom puts on pearl earrings and a delicate gold chain with a single pearl that sits in that hollow spot of her throat. She steps into her simple black heels.

“I’m going to break my ankle in these things tonight. If I weren’t presenting I’d go for flip-flops, too.” She glances at herself in the mirror, dabs at her lipstick with a tissue, and sighs. “All right. Let’s go.”

“Where’s Afton?” Abby asks.

“She texted me that she’s going to meet us there,” Mom says.

Abby frowns. “Did you make up yet from your fight?”

“Not yet,” Mom says. “But we will.”

“She’s tough, though. She’ll get through,” Abby says.

I hold the door open, and Abby runs out. My mother stops in the doorway to look at me.

“I think I understand what your plans were this afternoon,” she says, taking my wrist and holding it out as she looks me over.

“I charged it all to the room,” I say, my chin lifting without me being able to stop it.

A little line appears between her eyes, but only for an instant. “All right. Like you said, you deserve to be pampered sometimes. But next time you should ask me first. Okay?”

“Okay.”

She lets my wrist drop and takes a step back. “There’s something different about you this week. More than the hair and the dress.”