Page 39 of ClickBack

“I’m not mad because you stayed with somebody,” she says. “I just want you to be careful.”

“I was.”

“He’s famous.”

“I noticed.”

“That makes things different.”

I want to tell her I had this conversation over breakfast with the person actually involved. Instead, I take a sip and let it buy me enough time to remember she wasn’t there. She does not know he turned around while I got into the bath or apologized without trying to talk me out of being hurt. She sees a man whose name a stranger can recognize, and she is worried about her mother. I have worried on less evidence.

“I’m getting to know him,” I say. “That’s all I can tell you right now.”

She studies me, and I almost smile. This is what she looked like as a little girl when she suspected I had hidden a present badly.

“You look happy.”

“I had a good time.”

“Okay.”

The word comes with a small smile. I let myself return it.

“But turn your ringer on.”

“You were doing so well.”

She leans back. “I learned from you.”

There is enough truth in that to make me defensive. “I’m not apologizing for spending a night with someone because I wanted to.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“It sounded close.”

She looks down at the notebook. “I wish you heard yourself when you say things like that.”

“Like what?”

“That wanting something is a good enough reason.”

I put the mug down harder than I intend. “Rae, if we’re going to start comparing decisions…”

“We aren’t. I’m not.” She rubs her forehead, careful of the knot in her scarf. “I came to make sure you were okay. Can that be what I came for?”

I stop. She has asked me to leave something alone, a request I make readily and grant less often than I like to believe.

“Yes,” I say.

She nods and opens the notebook again, though she doesn’t read. I recognize the little delay, her need to give the conversation somewhere else to go. There are things we have never learned to say to each other without hearing every earlier argument underneath them.

“How’s studying?” I ask.

“Depends on whether you ask me before or after I take the practice questions.”

She turns the notebook toward me. Her handwriting fills the page, colors I once bought for her school projects now organizing things I cannot pronounce.

“A few more weeks,” she says. “I’m so close I’m afraid to say it out loud.”