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“Send a better one.”

“I’ll ask him.”

“You don’t need permission to send your parents a picture of your boyfriend, do you?”

I looked at Caldwell’s drawing. “Yes,” I said. “I do.” I didn’t, but it was easier to lie than to explain that I had no interest in sharing details about Hudson. Our relationship was sacred to me, and I didn’t want my parents’ opinions—more than likely negative opinions—to enter the equation.

She sighed. Then she told me about a restaurant they had tried.

By the time the call ended, they had learned nothing new about me. They didn’t ask whether I was happy. They didn’t ask what Hudson was like. They didn’t ask about my work beyond whether I still intended to find a real job.

I put my phone down and sat very still.

My parents had performed parenthood for twenty-six years while maintaining the safest possible distance. They knew my age, my degree, my address, and the rough outline of my employment.

They didn’t know me.

Still, everyone accepted their assigned roles. Mother. Father. Daughter.

Maybe roles only required repetition. Maybe truth mattered less than consistency. If they could pull off being parents while remaining strangers, I could pull off being a shifter a little longer.

The thought brought immediate relief.

A little longer. Not forever. Just long enough to feel secure.

Long enough to find the right moment.

Long enough to become necessary.

I returned to my desk and opened the laptop. The dentist’s logo stared back at me. For several minutes, I tried to focus on the tree. Then I noticed a new email.

From: Missy Carter

Subject: I miss you

My hand stopped on the trackpad. I opened it.

Sloane,

I know you’re busy, and I don’t want to make you feel pressured. I just miss you. I miss talking to you about normal things that have nothing to do with diapers, and I miss having someone who remembers what I was like before I became Daniel’s wife and Owen’s mom.

I know things are different now. I’m different. You probably are too. I don’t expect us to go back to exactly how we were.

I’d still like to know who you are now.

I attached some pictures of Owen. I promise I only picked five, which required heroic restraint.

Love,

Missy

The first photograph showed a baby sitting in a laundry basket surrounded by towels. In the second, he had mashed avocado across his face. The third captured him asleep against Missy’s shoulder, one tiny hand curled into the collar of her shirt.

Missy looked tired but happy.

The fourth photograph showed Daniel holding Owen near a window. The fifth was a picture of Missy alone, sitting on her porch with a coffee mug and a smile I recognized from childhood.

She was still there. Changed, but there.