Says the woman who cried on the phone at two in the morning.

“She only called. She won’t tell me where she is.”

“No, I don’t suppose she would.” Mama gets up and starts fussing with the yellow daisies she’s put in a blue-and-white Chinese vase. “Do you know, when she was five, she broke Grandma Maeve’s Waterford punch bowl and hid in the attic all day rather than come out and face the music? Scared the bejesus out of us until we found her. Lord, but she was defiant, even then. Not a lick of remorse.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Likely you were too young.” She tucks a daisy farther into the vase. “I believe we distracted you by putting on The Lion King.”

“That movie always made me want to cry,” I whisper, wanting to cry. But the tears won’t come. At this point, they’d be a relief.

Mama turns, and her silver brows knit. “Baby, what did Sam say to upset you?”

Because she knows us too well.

“She reminded me of how Macon used to be. All the ugly things.”

“And you let it get under your skin.”

Shame washes over me. “Yes.”

“I see.” She sets the vase on the table, then moves off.

“And then I told Macon that I couldn’t get past it.”

“I gather you two squabbled over that.”

Squabbled wasn’t the word. I gutted him.

My head feels too heavy to hold up, so I let it rest on the table. “I like Macon Saint.” My confession is muffled against the oak.

“Like him?” my mother asks from somewhere nearby.

“You know . . .” I wave a hand over my head. “Like him.”

I can hear the laughter in her voice. “As in you’re mentally drawing little hearts around his name?”

I sit up to glare properly.

She smirks. “What was that expression you and Sam used to use on me when you were kids? Oh, yes . . . well, duh.”

I swear, I might not have come from her womb, but sometimes it scares me how similar our snark is. “How long have you been waiting to use it on one of us?”

Mama smiles as she washes a few dishes in the sink. “Too long.” The light of the sun shines through the window and hits her soft blonde bob. There is more silver than gold now, but it only highlights her delicate beauty. Her eyes twinkle with mischief. “Of course you like him. And he likes you. That much is obvious.”

“Is it?” I trace a groove in the table.

“Well, it was at lunch.” She pulls a carafe of her homemade sweet tea from the refrigerator and pours us both a glass. “The way that boy looked at you . . .” She trails off, shaking her head with a bemused smile.

“How did he look at me?” I insist despite myself.

Mama eyes me thoughtfully. “As if he suddenly realized you were the reason God created sexual pleasure.”

“Mama!” I could have gone my whole life without hearing my mother say the words sexual pleasure.

She sniffs. “Oh, don’t be such a prude.”

“Prude, huh?” I sit back and drum my fingers on the table. “That mean you want to hear details about my sex life?”

A little spasm runs over my mother’s face, and she fluffs her hair, definitely avoiding my gaze. “I suppose if you really need to get things off your chest, I could . . .”

I burst out laughing. “Relax, Mama. That would thoroughly scar us both.”

She lets out a breath and holds a hand to her chest. “Thank the Lord. I still haven’t gotten over the birds-and-the-bees talk we gave you.”

“You mean when you and Daddy played Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love,” and I got all confused about educated fleas doing it?”

She flushes pink. “Probably not the best way to explain; I’ll grant you that.”

We both laugh, but mine dies down first. “Daddy always loved the classics.”

“I miss that man,” Mama says wistfully.

It makes my heart hurt. “I do too.”

“There were times when he’d make me hit him over the head with a pillow, but I loved him something stupid.” She shakes herself out of her reverie. Sharp blue-gray eyes pin me. “What is going on between you and Macon?”

“It’s complicated. Macon and I . . . kissed. And he . . . I . . .” A flush hits me. I can’t talk about this with Mama. But no one else knows our history. No one except Sam, and she’s gone. Not that I’d be able to tell her about this.

My mother is silent for a moment, drinking her tea and frowning slightly. “You’re working for him,” she says finally, her expression stern. “And living in his house.”

“We decided to end that arrangement.”

“Living together?”

My cheeks heat. “Working for him.”

“Well, that’s good.” She opens her mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. “He was Samantha’s beau.”