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“What do you think Dad will do when he finds out?” I asked Mom. “Why not Drew? He gets along with her.”
    â€œI know you won’t go along with what he wants.” Mom gripped my arm and told me the name of the home Dad had chosen for her. “I saw the paperwork,” she whispered. “It’s a cheap home. He’s done with me. He’ll throw me away.”
    I checked out the assisted living home my father wanted. It smelled of dirty diapers and moldy apples. The disheveled residents stared at blank walls; the staff were brusque and distracted. I wished that I could rescue every single one of those people. I stood in that lobby imagining my mother living there, unable to speak up for herself. Of my father sitting on his pile of wealth like Scrooge McDuck. Mom deserves better.
    I know it’s the loss of control, not the money, that bothers my father. The fact that his disowned daughter has popped back up to prove him wrong. That’s what he doesn’t like. He’s been fighting me, saying I coerced Mom into signing.
    I glance down at my steering wheel, then back into Susannah’s sympathetic, deep blue eyes. I shrug. “Mom’s spending the day checking out hot surfers and eating cookies. There are worse ways to live out the end of a life, I guess.”
    She squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry, hon. Let me know if you need anything.”
    I nod mutely, appreciative. Knowing I’ll never ask.
    Somebody honks, and I salute Susannah and drive away from the school, thinking about when I’ll have time to make those complicated treats. I don’t even know when the bake sale is. The truth is, I’m going to forget about it all by this afternoon.
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    Drew pulls up just as the heavy black Mercedes backs out of the driveway and accelerates down the quiet residential street. Her father’s gray head is visible above the driver’s seat. Eighty-nine, still driving, with shot reflexes and eyes scarred from imperfect cataract surgery. The last time he failed a behind-the-wheel test, he just went up to the DMV in Palm Springs and took it there, where they were much more sympathetic to the AARP crowd. Drew hadn’t been surprised. Her father always finds the right angle to get what he wants, even if just to prove that he can.
    Darn it. Drew slumps down so he doesn’t see her. It would have been simpler if her father was home and Drew could have walked in alone and looked for the book. She doubts he’d care a bit if she took it.
    Drew’s not exactly close with her father, but she’s not at war with him, either. Drew once heard a radio therapist advise people on how to get along with difficult family members: Just
pretend
that you get along. Don’t engage them. Let everything slide right off. That’s what Drew’s done her entire life, and she didn’t need a radio personality to tell her that.
    After Drew left for college, she rarely spoke to her parents, calling occasionally out of a sense of duty. They never contacted her, leaving Drew to wonder if they’d even notice if she stopped calling. It didn’t occur to Drew how strange this was until she mentioned it to her roommate, Brenda. “My mother calls me every week if I don’t call,” Brenda said. Brenda received care packages full of fresh apples from Washington state, her home. “Your family’s kind of messed up.”
    Drew hadn’t said anything to this. To her, it was just how her family was.
    So, during sophomore year, Drew had conducted an experiment. She hadn’t called them for the entire fall semester, just to see if they’d notice. She figured her mother was glad to be rid of her, secretly relieved that Drew wasn’t calling. After Rachel left, they hadn’t gotten along. It was passive-aggressive of Drew, perhaps, but Drew was only nineteen.
    Finally, in December, just when Drew