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exit instead of answering the question. If I wasn’t going to give Nick an answer about the future—and kids, Lord help me, kids?—I certainly wasn’t going to give one to my mother.
    Nick had thankfully booked us two rooms in the motel, at my request, to avoid any other deep conversations. I couldn’t really afford the extra expense from here to California and probably should have taken my mother’s offer to stay for free with her, but was prepared to take out an equity loan to pay for it if need be.
    Okay, assuming I had some equity. Which I didn’t. I had credit cards, though, so what was a little more debt to add onto the pile?
    “Why won’t you talk to me?” Ma asked, closing the atlas.
    I glanced at her. “Since when do you take an interest in my life?”
    “I always have.”
    “No, Ma, you haven’t. You’ve told me what to do, but you’ve never paused long enough to listen.”
    “I’m listening now.”
    “I’m thirty-six. Don’t you think it’s a little late?”
    As soon as I said the words, I felt bad and wanted to take them back. We’d barely spent one day on the road and already I’d screwed it up, par for the Hilary course. “I’m sorry, Ma, I—”
    “It’s all right.” But the words came fast, like applying a Band-Aid over a gaping wound. It couldn’t stop the bleeding.
    And here I was, fresh out of tourniquets for our relationship. Jeez, I was ruining them all over the place. Nick back in Boston, my mother here.
    The bright neon sign announcing the motel came into view. My mother elected to stay in the car while I checked us in, got the keys and parked by the rooms. She seemed tired as she headed into hers, Reginald trotting along by her feet, both of them going inside without a word of goodbye.
    I should have been relieved. But I tossed and turned all night, overindulging in junk TV, feeling as guilty as a six-year-old caught eating the Christmas pies before the company arrived. I’d screwed things up with my mother—again—and watching too many reruns of The Jerry Springer Show didn’t give me any ideas on how to fix the mess. Nor did it help me sort things out with Nick. All it did was give me a nightmare preview of my future, should the improbable happen and Nick decided to have a food fight over the Thanksgivingdinner with his cousins after his father got a sex change and married the live-in maid.
    I finally nodded off just before dawn, only to be awakened an hour later by the sound of the phone. I grabbed blindly for it, knocking the white plastic to the floor, trying twice before I got the receiver in the proper place against my ear and mouth. “Hullo?”
    “When are we leaving?” My mother, sounding as chipper as a squirrel on Acorn Dropping Day.
    “Later. I’m sleeping.”
    “We have a lot of miles to cover. We can’t stay in bed all day.”
    “Ma, I’m the driver. If you don’t let me sleep, I will crash the car into one of those concrete barriers and we’ll both become highway pancakes.”
    I could almost hear her disappointment in me. Apparently, she forgot I worked in a bar and “grille” and didn’t keep banker’s hours like the rest of the world. “There’s no reason to get smart with me, young lady. I was only asking a simple question. Are you ready to go?”
    “No.”
    “It’s already ten past seven. If we leave much later—”
    “Ma, listen to me. I am going back to bed. I am going back to sleep.” I used small, precise syllables. No room for misunderstanding. “I am not getting up now.”
    “Why? You sound awake to me.”
    I gritted my teeth and gripped the phone tighter. “It’s an act. I slept with a ventriloquist last night.”
    “Hilary, don’t be vulgar. Just tell me how you want your eggs and I’ll order for you. You can meet me in the restaurant attached to the motel in a few minutes.”
    The thought of breakfast made my stomach roll. My eyes closed and the phone slipped a little in my grasp. “Ma, for the love of all that