MERET IS IN her bedroom, bent over some kind of science experiment with swabs and vials, when I return from Win’s house. “Do you want to take a walk? The humidity finally broke.”

It’s funny, you think as a mother that the very act of giving someone life should be enough to bind you to them. But just because you love someone unconditionally doesn’t mean you don’t have to work at it. I remember how, when Meret was first born, she would turn to the sound of my voice as if it were a lodestone. Since every conversation I had while I was pregnant was a soundtrack to her, that instant recognition was guaranteed. On the other hand, Brian started at a disadvantage. He had to spend hours talking to her, not like she was a baby, but like she was a very tiny adult. He carried her around in a backpack as he mowed the lawn; he fed her strained peaches as he described what he was doing in his lab. He saw the distance between them and he coaxed and beckoned and engaged until she came closer.

What I did not realize at the time is that every step she took toward him was one further away from me.

Do not get me wrong—I would not erase the bond Meret and Brian have, not for the world. But I have made a career out of being with people who, by definition, are going to leave me. Sometimes I wonder if I am destined for that in all my relationships.

She looks at me suspiciously. “You want to take a walk.”

“Yeah. I’ve been sitting for hours. And you’ve been at camp, so we haven’t spent a lot of time together.” I hesitate. “I miss you.”

“I don’t see how. I’m pretty big to overlook.”

Her words fall like an ax. “Meret—”

“We could go to a movie. Or start a mother-daughter book club. There’s a lot we could do that doesn’t involve me exercising so you don’t have to look at your disgusting, fat pig of a daughter—”

“Meret!” Hearing her break her own heart is breaking mine. “Stop it!”

When I was pregnant with Meret, she would kick so fiercely that sometimes I had to lean against a wall or take deep breaths. I used to tell Brian she clearly wasn’t comfortable in my skin. She still isn’t, in her own.

“I love you,” I tell her fiercely, and I hope it’s every bit as loud as she’s screaming, silently, that she hates herself. “Please. Tell me what’s wrong.”

For a second, I feel her soften. I feel her on that threshold, deciding what would happen if we weren’t squaring off, but side by side. Then she turns away, her attention focused on the vial in her hand. “Why don’t you tell me?” Meret says. “You’re so good at it.”

* * *

—

THERE IS A guest bedroom in our house that doubles as my home office. I keep my laptop there, and files on my clients, and a futon couch. When I am with someone who’s very close to the end of life, and my hours are round-the-clock or inconsistent, I move into the guest room so that I don’t wake Brian up by crawling into bed in the middle of the night.

Tonight, though, I take my pillows and some extra bedding and settle myself in there just because.

I’m not sure what my endgame is here. Getting rid of Gita won’t erase her; it’s like the way the television burns like a phantom behind your lids even after you turn it off. It’s possible, too, that Brian is telling the truth—he was on the committee to choose postdocs, but he may not have the individual power to remove one.

Or maybe this isn’t about Gita and Brian at all.

Maybe this is about me and Brian.

Meret stomps her way through a silent dinner, where she picks at her food but doesn’t seem to eat any of it—which makes me wonder if she’ll sneak down to binge in the middle of the night, which makes me embarrassed to admit I was wondering. Brian doesn’t come home and doesn’t text. The house is quiet as a tomb.

In four years Meret will be at college and Brian and I will be rattling around here, forced to have conversations when there is nothing left to say.

Once I had a client whose husband had had an affair, yet they’d stayed married for thirty-five years afterward. She was ready to leave him but he swore if she stayed, he would do anything she asked. She thought it over and told him she needed to be able to ask him, at any time of the day, Where are you? and to have him answer. That was the only way she could get reassurance, and without that bridge, she couldn’t reach the far shore of forgiveness. There were some days she asked him twenty times. There were other weeks where she didn’t ask at all.

Although I am so tired I expect to fall asleep right away, I find myself staring at my watch as it ticks past midnight, 1:00, 2:00 A.M. At 2:30, when I hear the front door click open softly, I get out of bed and stand like an avenging angel at the top of the stairs. Brian looks up at me, purple shadows beneath his eyes. He hesitates, and then starts to climb, as if daring me to block him.

I don’t. I fall away, like mist.

“Where have you been?” I hear myself say.

He doesn’t turn around. “Does it matter? Aren’t you going to believe what you want anyway?”

He sees the light on in the spare bedroom and his step falters almost imperceptibly. When he reaches our room, he closes the door.

I lean against it, palms pressed flat. I try to pretend that on the other side, Brian is doing the same.

* * *

—

MERET IS WAITING for me in the kitchen the next morning. She doesn’t meet my gaze but bashfully asks, “Do you want to go for a quick walk?”

She needs to get ready for camp. I have a pounding headache from lack of sleep. But I turn in to her enthusiasm like a flower finding sunlight. “Yes,” I say. “Yes! Just let me get my sneakers.”

As we start along the reservoir, I hold up my end of the conversation, wondering what precipitated her change of heart. We talk about what we’d do if we won a million dollars in the lottery. Meret chatters about Sarah, about how their STEM contraption meant to shield an egg from a two-story fall won a competition, about a rumor that one of the counselors was related to Princess Kate. I tell her the story of Marina Abramovi? and the Great Wall.

“So what happened?” she asks.

I shrug. “They hugged. And that was that.”

“That is so sad. I mean, you go all that way for nothing.”

I look at her. “Do you think she should have taken him back?”

“No,” Meret scoffs. “He cheated on her.”

“You believe it’s that black and white?”

“Don’t you?”

Apparently, I do, because I’m still not speaking to Brian.

“I wouldn’t walk three thousand kilometers for a guy,” Meret says.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

When she turns back to me, her cheeks are flushed, her chestnut hair is unraveling from its braid. Her eyes are gray, nearly silver, sometimes blue, storming along with her moods. “Mom,” she says, biting her lower lip. “I’m sorry I was such a bitch.”

In elementary school, when Meret was throwing tantrums at home, Brian and I went to a parent-teacher conference. We expected the worst, but we were told that Meret was the model of good behavior; never a problem in class. Well, Brian said, if she has to have a meltdown, I’d rather it be with us.

There’s something to be said for being someone’s safety zone. Even if, sometimes, it means a kick or a punch or a rush of angry words.

I slip my arm around Meret’s shoulders. “Bitch away,” I say lightly. “I can take it.”

She starts walking again and looks at me from under her lashes. “I want to ask you something but I’m scared to say it out loud.”

“You can ask me anything, baby.”

“Are you and Dad going to get divorced?”

Well. That answers the question of how much she has overheard. I realize how silly I was to assume that, under this roof, she might not know that Brian and I have been fighting. I wonder if this is the reason Meret has been pushing me away, and then pulling me back, as if she can’t decide between the two extremes. Is she so scared of losing me that she thinks letting go would be less painful?

I want to ask her how much she knows. But I can’t do that without throwing Brian under a bus, and that wouldn’t be fair.

I stop walking and put my hands on her shoulders. “Meret. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you left.”

You knew? I think.

“Your father and I had a fight,” I tell her. “But everything’s going to be fine.”

She scrutinizes me, as if to divine whether or not I’m telling the truth.

“Was it about me?”

“No!” I blurt out. “Never.”

“Then what?”

I hesitate. “Money,” I lie. “Married couples argue. And they get over it. You’ll see, one day.”

She ducks her head. “I doubt it.”

“In the near future there are going to be suitors lined up around the block for you,” I tell her. “I know these things because I’m your mother.”

Meret stifles a smile. “You may be slightly subjective.”

“Then remind me to say I told you so.”

We walk back home in silence. Our arms swing at our sides, back and forth. On one of those pumping motions, I brush Meret’s hand accidentally, but she catches my fingers.

She holds on tight.

* * *

—