Red.
Puffy.
“Did you and Frances argue?”
“What? No.”
The answer came before I’d even finished the question.
“Maddie…”
“We’re fine, Mom.”
“Then why do you keep coming home looking like you’ve been crying?”
“I haven’t.”
“Okay.”
“Did you and Frances argue?”
She stared at me.
“Okay?”
“If you don’t want to tell me, I’m not dragging it out of you.”
Something flickered across her face.
Relief, maybe.
That bothered me more than if she’d rolled her eyes.
She took the plate upstairs.
That bothered me.
I waited until Monday before deciding I was probably overthinking it.
Then Friday came.
At seven, Maddie appeared in the kitchen with her overnight bag.
“Going to Frances’s.”
I looked at the bag.
Same worn handle.
“Going to Frances’s.”
Same little patch on the corner from when she’d dropped it on a camping trip years earlier.
“Everything okay between you two?”
She sighed. “Mom.”
