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TV show ( Wait a second, is that the same guy as before, or someone else? ). Spasms of wild longing would strike her out of nowhere, leaving her dazed and weepy, prone to sullen fits of anger that inevitably got turned against her father, which was totally unfair, since he wasn’t the one who’d abandoned her. In an effort to fend off these attacks, Jill made a list of her mother’s faults and pulled it out whenever she felt herself getting sentimental:
Weird, high-pitched totally fake laugh
Crappy taste in music
Judgmental
Wouldn’t say hi if she met me on the street
Ugly sunglasses
Obsessed with Jen
Uses words like hoopla and rigamarole in conversation
Nags Dad about cholesterol
Flabby arm Jello
Loves God more than her own family
    It actually worked a little, or maybe she just got used to the situation. In any case, she eventually stopped crying herself to sleep, stopped writing long, desperate letters asking her mother to please come home, stopped blaming herself for things she couldn’t control.
    It was her decision, she learned to remind herself. No one made her go.
    *   *   *
    THESE DAYS, the only time Jill consistently missed her mother was first thing in the morning, when she was still half-asleep, unreconciled to the new day. It just didn’t feel right, coming down for breakfast and not finding her at the table in her fuzzy gray robe, no one to hug her and whisper, Hey, sleepyhead, in a voice full of amusement and commiseration. Jill had a hard time waking up, and her mother had given her the space to make a slow and grumpy transition into consciousness, without a whole lot of chitchat or unnecessary drama. If she wanted to eat, that was fine; if not, that was no problem, either.
    Her father tried to pick up the slack—she had to give him that—but they just weren’t on the same wavelength. He was more the up-and-at-’em type; no matter what time she got out of bed, he was always perky and freshly showered, looking up from the morning paper—amazingly, he still read the morning paper—with a slightly reproachful expression, as if she were late for an appointment.
    “Well, well,” he said. “Look who’s here. I was wondering when you were gonna put in an appearance.”
    “Hey,” she muttered, uncomfortably aware of herself as the object of parental scrutiny. He eyeballed her like this every morning, trying to figure out what she’d been up to the night before.
    “Bit of a hangover?” he inquired, sounding more curious than disapproving.
    “Not really.” She’d only had a couple of beers at Dmitri’s house, maybe a toke or two off a joint that made the rounds at the end of the night, but there was no point in going into detail. “Just didn’t get enough sleep.”
    “Huh,” he grunted, not bothering to hide his skepticism. “Why don’t you stay home tonight? We can watch a movie or something.”
    Pretending not to hear him, Jill shuffled over to the coffeemaker and poured herself a mug of the dark roast they’d recently started buying. It was a double-edged act of revenge against her mother, who hadn’t allowed Jill to drink coffee in the house, not even the lame breakfast blend she thought was so delicious.
    “I can make you an omelette,” he offered. “Or you can just have some cereal.”
    She sat down, shuddering at the thought of her father’s big sweaty omelettes, orange cheese oozing from the fold.
    “Not hungry.”
    “You have to eat something.”
    She let that pass, taking a big gulp of black coffee. It was better that way, muddy and harsh, more of a shock to the system. Her father’s eyes strayed to the clock above the sink.
    “Aimee up?”
    “Not yet.”
    “It’s seven-fifteen.”
    “There’s no rush. We’re both free first period.”
    He nodded and turned back to his paper, the way he did every morning after she told him the same lie. She was never quite sure if he believed her or just didn’t care. She got the same distracted vibe from a lot of the adults