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mothers had started to improve their Spanish. They’d continued meeting, despite my mother’s move and Kristen’s mother’s death. I only hoped our foursome, the Tuesday Night Flick Chicks, had half the staying power.
    â€œUncle Sam,” I called. A counselor who worked with veterans, Terry Stinson often rode around on a moped, wearing an Uncle Sam costume, the pointed white beard his own. He gave me a hug, then greeted the woman beside me.
    â€œHello, Peggy. So good to see you,” Terry said in his gentle, throaty bass. In my childhood, he’d been the fun single adult who played hide-and-seek with the kids and often stayed for dinners around the big, battered table. He hadn’t visited much after we moved to our own house, but I ran into him downtown every few months.
    I couldn’t tell whether Bonnie was about to hug him or cry. Clearly, she had not expected to see him.
    Or had she feared it?
    â€œMy wife, Sharon,” he said, a hand on his wife’s back. “My old friend Peggy Manning.”
    Sharon’s lips thinned, her muscular shoulders tensing visibly in her sleeveless dress. She tugged at one diamond ear stud, about the size of an oyster cracker.
    The two women were cast from the same mold—there are a lot of those slender, blue-eyed blond, Scandinavian genes floating around the Pacific Northwest. Bonnie had twenty years on Sharon, but age difference aside, it was clear that life had treated the potter more roughly.
    Terry coughed gruffly and turned aside, his hand a fist in front of his mouth. Sharon turned, too, her hand on his shoulder, her face close to his. “It’s nothing,” he said.
    I felt my mother’s presence at my side before I saw her.
    â€œMom, this is Ben. Ben Bradley. My mother, Lena Istvanffy Reece.”
    She ignored his outstretched hand and went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Come tell me all the things my daughter won’t.”
    Two blond, blue-eyed girls approached. “Meet my ballerinas,” Terry said, recovered from his coughing fit. “This is Peggy.”
    â€œCall me Bonnie,” the potter said. Sharon stretched out an arm to draw her older daughter close.
    â€œDo you go to the PNB school?” I asked. The famed Pacific Northwest Ballet, at Seattle Center.
    She arched her long neck. “Next year, I hope. We’re at Beacon Hill Ballet.”
    â€œOh, in the basement of Wedding Row. Isn’t that near your studio, Bonnie? I saw the address on your card. Love those old brick buildings.”
    Bonnie’s gaze flicked toward Terry, then Sharon, and she took a step back.
    â€œTime for a drink.” Kristen looped an arm through mine and led me to the bar. The scent of thyme, newly planted between the pavers, perfumed the air. I glanced over my shoulder at Bonnie, standing on the edge of the circle that had gathered around Terry and his family. He the social butterfly, she the observant artist.
    Across the yard, my mother had cornered Ben at a table for two. Other mothers might quiz their daughters’ dates about jobs and family, assessing security and suitability for marriage. My mother would be asking when and where he was born, looking to the stars for signs of trust and trouble. Or she might ask his Myers-Briggs personality type, or his number on the Enneagram.
    I had no fear. Ben was sweet and solid, and I was less concerned about his intentions than figuring out my own. And he was laughing, a good sign.
    But as long as my mother was focused on Ben, I’d have no chance to suss out the tensions between her and Bonnie.
    Kristen handed me a glass of tequila-thyme lemonade.
    â€œOh my. Can I get this in an IV? And the yard—wow.”
    We sipped our drinks. Tiny white lights sparkled in the trees, and a double strand wound its way up the thick trunk of the monkey puzzle tree. Finds from what Kristen likes to call our antiquing trips dotted the yard. Most days, it was