She said she does not hate their mother, that she has never been able to, and that she has spent ten years hiding that because it felt like a betrayal of them.

Bea, who was sitting on my counter, said: “Teddy.

Nobody ever asked you to.”

And Teddy said, “You didn’t have to ask.”

And Odile said, “Yeah. That’s fair.”

And I go to Ruthann Bello on Tuesdays and have for eighteen months and expect to for a while.

I moved to days permanently in the September and took the pay cut, eleven years after I should have.

It does not help anybody now — Willa is sixteen and out four nights a week — and I did it anyway.