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He had a nice laugh, deep and hearty and spontaneous. “Didn’t your mother ever give you that old lecture about wearing clean underwear in case you had to go to the hospital?"
    Maxine had to laugh too. “Come to think of it, she did, Harold. I guess everyone’s mother used that line.”
    “Are you close to your mother, India?” The question was sincere and unexpected, and she hesitated before she answered, taken aback. No one except her female friends had ever asked her that before.
    “I was, but my mother died when I was sixteen.” Now, what had possessed her to be truthful? And why would such old news make her feel a sudden new pang of loss?
    Edna stopped on her way into the kitchen and turned, giving Maxine a puzzled look. She was talking to a client about her mother?
    Maxine rolled her eyes and shrugged, indicating that she had a really strange one on the line.
    "I’m sorry. That must have been tough for you, losing your mom when you were so young." His voice was thoughtful. “Think it’s hard for a girl, growing up without a mother?"
    Of course, Maxine instantly thought about Graham not having a father. “I'd say it depends a lot on the other parent. Kids definitely need one person who loves them, don’t you think?” It was a subject she’d spent a lot of time mulling over. "They need one person who loves them unconditionally, who lets them find out who they really are without trying to make them into"—she hesitated, because this was an area she had strong feelings and fears about—“into something society thinks is acceptable.” She couldn’t seem to stop talking, now that she’d started. “I think at a certain stage parents should ask kids, ‘What is it you really want?’ And then listen hard to what they say, and respect it, whatever it is.”
    “Hmmm.” He was considering her answer. "That’s pretty perceptive, India. I definitely agree with you. So did you have that when you were growing up? Somebody who let you just be you, who asked you what you really wanted?”
    This guy was just way too peculiar.
    "Not really.” Not at all . “My father was the type who had strict ideas about what his daughter should be and how she should act. Nobody ever asked me what I wanted.” Maxine bit her lip. She was being much too candid here. Besides, she tried not to think too much about her father. She wondered again how the heck a business call had turned so personal.
    "So who has a totally happy childhood, Harold?” She made her voice deliberately upbeat. She really didn’t want to go any deeper into her family problems. “How about you? What kind of parents did you have?”
    “Oh, normal, I guess. If there is such a thing. My family was nomadic, my dad was in the army, so we moved constantly. How about you, India? Did you grow up moving, or did you stay in one place?"
    He was too adroit at turning the tables. “A small town in the Rockies until I left home,” she said, and before he could pursue the topic she hurried on. Two could play this game. “You said you travel a lot with your job, Harold. Ever thought about settling down? Marriage, kids, the whole nine yards?” This call was going where no call had gone before, so she might as well just let it roll. He was paying, after all.
    There was a tiny pause, and then he said, “I was married once. I think that's about all I can handle.”
    “Bad memories?” She knew all about those, the times in the middle of the night when there was no way to get off the treadmill of "what if” and “I should have.” She’d learned by now just to go through the scenes, counting them off like beads on a string. Even now, when she was wide-awake, thinking about Ricky gave her the familiar tight knot in her gut.
    “Some bad memories, yeah," he said slowly. “She wasn’t any better than I was at marriage. It takes two to make it, and it takes two to wreck it, and looking back I did my share," he said in a rueful tone.
    “Sounds like the words of a