But the sight of her name on my screen sent a jolt through me that no merely-past thing could have, and I understood that some part of me had been braced against exactly this for fifteen years without ever admitting it, waiting, half-expecting, for the day she would reappear and demand something.

Here it was.

She had not come back for any of the birthdays, or the graduations, or the ten thousand ordinary days when a mother might have been useful or wanted.

She had come back for the one day that would put her in front of an audience worth performing for.

Even her timing was about herself.

Chapter 3 — My New Family

Her message was short, and direct, and it told me everything I needed to know about why she was reaching out and what fifteen years had and had not changed in her.