She’s my lawyer.’

My mother looked past me into the apartment.

She seemed upset by its modest size, by the foldable stroller near the sofa, perhaps by the evidence that I had been living an entire life outside her supervision.

She asked to see Noah.

I told her not today.

Her eyes filled, and I felt the old impulse to comfort her.

Then she said, ‘You always punish us when you don’t get your way.’

The words landed where they always had.