Pictures Of Us. Amy Garvey

“Real-life stuff is a little different. There’s a lot of child left in her, Michael. She still won’t let me give away her Barbies.”

      She had to know, of course. And we were going to tell her, this weekend probably, when we were all at home together, with time to talk. Michael had spoken to Drew again yesterday, and we’d agreed that we would drive up to Cambridge over the Memorial Day weekend to meet him. I hadn’t really faced the fact that the trip was only two weeks away—denial was so easy to slip into, a comfortable old coat I donned every day now. If I pretended that we had all the time in the world to tell Emma, I could almost make myself believe it.

      I’d pulled the Jeep up to the curb in front of the school, under an ancient elm that dappled the hood with shadows in the afternoon sunlight. I had the radio on louder than usual, a Springsteen song from my own high-school years, and I felt pretty good—I’d forced myself through yoga that morning, which I’d let slip all week, and I’d finished sorting photos for another chapter in my book. The laundry had piled up again, but I had decided not to care about that. Dirty clothes were the least of my problems this week, and the afternoon was too lovely to spoil with regret—of any kind.

      Emma banged through the front doors of the school with a gang of other girls, a rainbow of pastel shirts and short skirts, faded denim and backpacks adorned with key chains and cell phones. I didn’t wave—I knew better. But she smiled when she climbed into the car beside me and slammed the door shut. “Let’s shop,” she said.

      I shifted the Jeep into gear. “That’s the plan.”

      We decided to start at Lord & Taylor, which would have the widest selection, if not the best prices. Guilt lay at the bottom of that decision, and I wasn’t going to try to deny it. Finding out that she had a half brother, that her dad had actually slept with someone other than her mom once upon a time, when she’d long believed in the fairy-tale, childhood-sweethearts version of our life together, was going to be horror enough that it was comforting to pretend I could buy her understanding with an expensive dress.

      We clashed from the start, which shocked me. Emma had her moods, like any red-blooded American fifteen-year-old, but we got along ninety percent of the time. She still liked good-night kisses and the occasional lazy Saturday-morning cuddle, for God’s sake, so I didn’t expect a battle over something that was meant to be a pleasure. While I was fingering lovely, sleek little dresses that she proclaimed “boring” and “way momlike,” everything she chose was either too short or was so obnoxiously glittery most Atlantic City showgirls would have protested.

      “It’s a prom, not a cabaret act,” I snapped, hanging up the latest offending dress as the first sharp fingers of a headache gripped the back of my skull.

      “God, Mom.” Emma rolled her eyes and walked toward another rack, declaring over her shoulder, “It’s, like, the twenty-first century, you know?”

      “I know full well what century it is,” I hissed, hating the sound of my voice. Where had it come from? My mother had never raised her voice, never lost her cool—she had an amazing ability to disengage whenever any of us were acting up. She’d simply pull back, eye us coolly and wait until we realized that she wasn’t going to put up with whatever it was we had done or said.

      I took a deep breath and sank into one of the chairs set against a mirrored column. I could be calm. I would be calm. I had to be, about the dress and everything else. We weren’t going to get through the next couple of weeks otherwise.

      “Maybe Nana could make me something,” Emma said suddenly, chewing her bottom lip. Her backpack was slung carelessly over one shoulder and her arms were folded across her chest. It sounded like a truce, even if it looked like defiance. My mother wouldn’t make her anything too daring, but Emma would convince her grandmother to design something with a hint of sex to it, even if it was subtle.

      “Nana’s pretty busy right now, Em,” I said carefully. “You could ask her this weekend, but I can’t guarantee she’ll be able to make you a dress before the dance.”

      “I bet she’ll do it.”

      “Well, we’ll find out, I guess.” I stood up and started for the door, Emma following beside me without a word. I didn’t understand her abrupt about-face—at least, not until we got into the car and I was steering out of the parking lot.

      “Jesse invited me to a party,” Emma said, fiddling with a tube of lip gloss she’d scrounged out of her bag.

      “After the prom, you mean?” I needed to make a left onto North Avenue, which was nearly impossible at that time of day.

      “No, Memorial Day.”

      Damn it. Those same fingers pinched into my skull. The battle hadn’t been won; the venue had simply changed.

      “Emma, I don’t know…”

      “It’s at his parents’ house,” she said quickly. She’d rolled down her window, and a rush of air blew her hair back as I saw my opportunity and pulled onto the road.

      “I haven’t met his parents, Emma, and I don’t think—”

      She cut me off. “They’re really nice, Mom. And Grace is going, too. Her mom said yes.”

      There it was, the resentful emphasis on the word her. Other parents understood, that tone said. Other parents were cool.

      Of course, other parents were probably not driving two hundred miles that weekend to meet a newly discovered illegitimate son.

      “Well, Grace can tell you all about it,” I said in the most even tone I could manage. “But that weekend is a problem.”

      “I knew you’d say no. I knew it! I didn’t even have to tell you the party’s at their shore house. I told Grace I wouldn’t get that far.” Arms folded across her chest again, she was seething, her jaw tight with fury and her eyes brimming with tears.

      I couldn’t even pretend sympathy at the moment. “At their shore house? The party is at their shore house, and you thought you had a chance to go?”

      The tears spilled, bright wet tracks down her cheeks. “Grace is going!”

      “Well, I’d love to know if Grace’s mother was told exactly where this party is.” I turned off North onto Dudley with a jerk of the steering wheel.

      Silence.

      I kept my mouth shut, too. It was the smart move at the moment, with my headache ramping up again, more vicious than before, and my heart still hammering in outrage. A party at the beach, fifty or more miles away, with a boy I’d barely met? She was dreaming. Even if Jesse’s parents were there, which was iffy, it didn’t mean the kids would be supervised down at the beach. And God knows I had a good idea what teenagers could get up to when they were determined.

      She was too young still, a child beneath the tentative makeup and the clothes and the newly adopted attitude. She had no idea about boys, older boys, and certainly not about sex…She didn’t, did she? Oh God—my headache, and everything else, was going from bad to worse.

      “Why exactly is Memorial Day a problem?” Emma said, startling me out of my thoughts.

      I swung the Jeep onto Clark, my teeth clenched. What was I supposed to tell her?

      “Mom?” Resentful, demanding.

      “We’ll discuss it when your father comes home,” I said, turning down our street and into the driveway.

      She huffed “Whatever” and slammed out of the car, leaving me leaning against the steering wheel, my heart still hammering, the afternoon sun hot on the knuckles that gripped the wheel. Through the screen door she’d left open, I heard a door bang shut, then Walter’s confused whine.