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and if I ever meet someone who does I’ll have to pull out the microchip embedded in their neck and scream, “POD PERSON!”
    I just stare at her. I feel so hollow. I’m so empty the ice cream on my spoon starts to drip back in the sundae glass.
    Her lips snap shut and she gives me a look of compassion so deep and authentic it makes tears well in my eyes.
    “You’re really hurting, honey.”
    All I can do is nod.
    “I wish I could make it better.”
    “You said the same thing when Steve dumped me, Mom.”
    “I meant it then, too.” She’s a little disheveled after yoga, a little less done today, makeup lighter, her hair perfectly in place and hairsprayed so well it would take a Category 4 hurricane to blow a single strand out of place, but she’s more…Mom. More of the woman who tucked me in bed with a nighttime story, the mother who catered to me when I was sick, the one who taught me how to use an EpiPen by injecting herself in the thigh seventeen times before I got it right. 
    The mom who just is there . A steady presence. We joke and she needles (pun intended) and is overbearing and judgmental, but she’s Mom no matter what. She’ll love me no matter what. She will invade my apartment and respect boundaries about as well as Vladimir Putin and chime a wine glass to get me to kiss a billionaire client and over-babble about her sex life with Dad, but by God, she’s got my back. 
    And right now I need her more desperately than I need a shower.
    And that is saying a lot .
    Using her Mommy Sense, which is like Spidey Sense but with more judgment, she stands, walks to my side of the booth, moves closer to me, and just opens her arms. A whiff of something floral and spicy fills the air between us and then I’m in her warm embrace, crying so hard I will probably leave a salt lick on her shoulder, and I get to fade away for a few precious minutes and stop being Shannon, stop being the stupid woman who blew it with the best guy ever, stop being the feminist career woman who can’t believe Declan is such an ass, and—
    I can just cry and be held by my mommy.
    Who is murmuring something unintelligible in my ear, but it sounds like she’s saying, “Like father, like son.”
    “Huh?” I pull back. The steel blue of her lightweight rayon jacket has a brow-shaped wet spot on it. 
    “Like father, like son,” she says, a scowl making her crow’s feet emerge.
    “What do you mean?”
    “James.” She says his name like it’s a curse word. 
    “What about James?”
    Silence. Mom doesn’t do silence. The hair on my arms starts to stand on end.
    “Mom?”
    She shifts uncomfortably in her seat, spooning the perfect ratio of whipped cream, berry ice cream, and fresh berries onto a spoon. Then she stuffs the entire concoction in her mouth so she can’t talk.
    “When you swallow, the truth is coming out.”
    “That’s what he said,” are the first words out of her mouth.
    “What does that even mean?”
    “I was making a joke. You know. He. Swallow. Um…”
    “Joke fail.”
    Her eyes narrow. “It’s never, ever not funny to joke about swallowing.”
    I regard my marshmallow cream in a whole new light and drop my spoon. “Thanks, Mom. You just ruined my chocolate comfort.”
    “It’s not like you need the sugar.”
    “Since when do you criticize my eating habits? That’s like Paula Deen telling Dr. Oz how to eat.”
    She frowns. “Let’s talk about Declan.”
    “Let’s not. Let’s talk about James. His dad. Who you…know?”
    She turns the same shade of pink as her ice cream. “I don’t know how to talk about him.”
    My mind races to do the math. “You can’t possibly know him from anywhere. He’s at least ten years older than you.”
    “Seven.”
    My turn to narrow my eyes. I feel like a snake, ready to hiss, or hug her to death. “Spill it.”
    She bats her eyelashes innocently. “Spill what?”
    “Two seconds ago you were doing heavy-duty mother-daughter bonding over what an ass