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broken. Some girl he was crazy about told him she just wanted to be friends because he was too nice. He told me I had ruined his life by not raising him to be a typical male asshole—my description, of course, not his!”
    “Did you apologize for being such a bad mother?” I said, laughing.
    She raised her eyebrows. “Did you?”
    “Not in this life!”
    “So you
know
I didn’t! I told him I had raised him to be a peaceful presence on this earth and that any girl who couldn’t see that was a waste of his time. He didn’t speak to me for two weeks, and then he met a girl who thought he was the cat’s pajamas and all was forgiven.”
    The old-fashioned expression made me smile. I remember my mother bestowing that one as a high compliment, too, although why feline night wear should be considered something wonderful was still beyond me.
    “So there’s hope for me and Phoebe?”
    “Of course there is. Look at Jason. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth now, but I swear he’s responsible for every gray hair I’ve got.”
    “You haven’t got any gray hair!”
    “I owe it all to my stylist,” she said. “The reality is a much grimmer picture.”
    “Your secret is safe with me.”
    “Speaking of secrets,” she said, “can I ask you something?”
    “Sure.” The sky was clear and there was the barest sliver of a new moon. Phoebe used to have a book that showed the stars at different times of the year. When she was little, we spent hours on the back porch trying to identify the constellations. “Ask away.”
    “Why don’t you just tell her about her father and let her figure out how to deal with it the best she can?”
    Amelia didn’t know his identity, but I had shared the rest of the story with her. I was surprised by her question. “How long do you think it would take for her to track him down?”
    “So? What if she does? Kids do it all the time.”
    “So what if he’s less than thrilled to discover that he has a seventeen-year-old daughter?”
    “What if he’s not?”
    “Not what?”
    “Not ‘less than thrilled.’ What if he’s delighted to find her after all these years?”
    Sometimes Amelia annoyed me by playing the devil’s advocate. Maybe that was what she was doing now. It was probably an occupational hazard for lawyers, but I always found it counterproductive. Not to mention the fact that the devil has plenty of advocates already on the job. One more is just overkill.
    “You make it sound like he’s been searching for her or something,” I said. “Trust me. This isn’t that story. The last thing he wants is to take on the responsibility of a teenage daughter. When I told him I was going to have an abortion, he couldn’t get on that plane to Ghana fast enough.”
    “Sometimes men change when they see forty staring them in the face,” she said. “It’s a mortality thing.”
    Amelia seemed to be suddenly on the side of complete disclosure, although she had never before expressed an opinion on the matter, other than to show mild surprise when I explained that my solution had been to falsely claim multiple partners as a way of throwing Phoebe off the track. She suggested that simply refusing to reveal the name might have been a better way to go, but she respected the creativity and thoroughness of my approach.
    As we sat there, a thought occurred to me. “Has Phoebe been lobbying you about this?”
    Amelia grinned at me. “I wouldn’t describe it as lobbying, but she definitely mentioned it when I saw her yesterday.”
    “Well, you can tell her for me it won’t work.” I sat up and wrapped my arms around my knees. “The potential for her to really get her feelings hurt is too great. Why risk it?”
    “Her feelings or yours?”
    I raised my eyebrows and looked at her.
    Amelia looked back at me. “You realize I know this is none of my business, right?”
    “I’m the one who brought it up,” I said. “Go ahead.”
    “Phoebe is a very strong young woman. You can’t always