She called a realtor as soon as she got to her office. They made an appointment to meet at the house the following week. It was going to be the first time Sarah got a full tour of the house herself. She had the keys now, but she didn't want to go there on her own. She knew it would make her too sad. It felt intrusive to her somehow and would be easier to do with the realtor, keeping things professional, as Phil had said. She was doing her job for a client, not just a friend. She had watched his interment as his friend.

She had just hung up after talking to the realtor, when her secretary buzzed her and told her that her mother was on the line. Sarah hesitated for a moment, took a breath, and answered the call. She loved her mother, but not the way she never failed to invade her space.

“Hi, Mom,” she said, sounding bright and breezy. She didn't like telling her mother her woes. It always led to things she didn't want to discuss with her. Audrey was never afraid to push her way past whatever boundaries Sarah had. Audrey's many years in twelve-step groups, and therapy, had failed to teach her that. “I got your message last night, but you said you were going out, so I didn't call,” Sarah explained.

“You sound awful. What's wrong?” So much for bright and breezy.

“I'm just tired. I have a lot going on at the office. One of my clients died yesterday, and I'm trying to organize everything for the estate. It's a big job.”

“That's too bad.” Audrey sounded briefly sympathetic, which was at least nice of her. Sarah didn't mind the sympathy, she just didn't want everything else that usually went with it. Her mother's questions, and even her gestures of kindness, were always invasive and excessive. “Is something else wrong?”

“No. I'm fine.” Sarah could feel her voice get small, and hated herself for it. Up, up, up, she told herself, or Mom will nail you. Audrey always knew when Sarah was upset, no matter what she did to hide it, and then the interrogation, and eventually accusations would begin. And worse yet, the advice. It was never what Sarah wanted to hear. “How are you? Where did you go last night?” Sarah tried to distract her mother. Sometimes that worked.

“I went to a new book club with Mary Ann.” Mary Ann was one of her mother's many women friends. She had spent the twenty-two years of her widowhood hanging out with other women, playing bridge, taking classes, going to women's groups, even taking trips with them. She had dated a few men over the years, who always turned out to be alcoholic, problematic, or secretly married. She seemed to draw dysfunctional men to her like a magnet. And after she disposed of them, she then went back to hanging out with other women. She was in one of her celibate phases again, after a brief romance with an owner of a car dealership, who had turned out to be yet another alcoholic, or so she said. It was hard for Sarah to believe there were that many on the planet. But if there was one in the area, Audrey was sure to find him.

“That sounds like fun,” Sarah said, referring to the book club. She couldn't think of anything worse than attending a book club with a flock of women. Just thinking about things like that kept her seeing Phil on weekends. She didn't want to end up like her mother. And despite years of her mother's entreaties, she had never gone to Adult Children of Alcoholics, a twelve-step group her mother was absolutely certain was right for Sarah. Sarah had seen a therapist briefly between college and law school, and felt she had dealt with at least some of her “issues,” as much about her mother as about her father. She had never dated an alcoholic. The men she chose were emotionally unavailable, her specialty, because in a way, despite his physical presence in the house, she had never really known her father, thanks to his drinking. He had been shut off from all of them.

“I wanted to let you know that we're having Thanksgiving at Mimi's.” Mimi was Audrey's mother, and Sarah's grandmother. She was eighty-two years old, had been widowed for ten years, after a long and happy marriage, and had a far more normal dating life than her daughter's or even Sarah's. There seemed to be a limitless supply of nice, normal, happy widowers at her age. She was out nearly every night, and very rarely with other women, unlike her daughter. She was having a lot more fun than either of them.

“That's fine,” Sarah said, making a note of it on her calendar. “Do you want me to bring anything?”

“You can help cook the turkey.”

“Is anyone else coming?” Sometimes her mother brought one of her friends who had nowhere else to go. And her grandmother sometimes invited friends, or even her current boyfriend, which always irritated Audrey. Sarah suspected she was jealous, but never said it.

“I'm not sure. You know your grandmother. She said something about inviting one of the men she's going out with, because his children live in Bermuda.” Mimi had a vast supply of men and friends, and had never been to a book club in her life. She had far more entertaining fish to fry.

“I just wondered,” Sarah said vaguely.

“You're not bringing Phil, are you?” Audrey asked pointedly. The way she said it spoke volumes. She had pegged him correctly as a problem, right from the beginning. Audrey was the expert in screwed-up men. She said it as though asking if Sarah was bringing a test tube of leprosy to their dinner. She asked the same question every year, which never failed to annoy Sarah. Audrey knew the answer without asking. Sarah never brought Phil to Thanksgiving. He spent holidays with his children and never invited Sarah to join them. In four years, she had never spent a holiday with him.

“Of course not. He'll be with his children, and then they're going skiing in Tahoe.” They did the same thing every year, as Audrey knew only too well. This year was no different. Nothing in the relationship had changed in four years.

“I assume he's not inviting you, as usual,” her mother said in an acid tone. She had hated Phil the first time she laid eyes on him, and things had worsened since then. The only things she had not accused him of were being gay or alcoholic, neither of which he was. “I think it's disgraceful that he doesn't invite you. That ought to tell you what the relationship means to him. You're thirty-eight years old, Sarah. If you ever want to have children, you'd better find a new guy and get married. Phil is never going to change. He has too many issues.” Her mother was right, of course, and Sarah knew he had an aversion to any form of therapeutic help.

“I'm not worried about that this morning, Mom. I have other things to take care of, here at the office. He needs to be with his children. It's nice for him to be alone with them.” She would never have admitted it to her mother, but it had bothered her too in the last year or two. She had met his children several times, but he never invited her on weekends away with them, or vacations. He told her exactly what she had just said to her mother. He said he needed time alone with his children. It was sacred. Like going to the gym five nights a week, which precluded their seeing each other anytime except on weekends. After four years, she would have liked being invited on his vacations, but it was not part of the deal she had with him. She was strictly his weekend girlfriend. It was hard for her to admit, even to herself, that she had put up with it for that long. Four years had just slipped by, and nothing ever changed. Even without marriage as their ultimate goal, a little mellowing of his rigid rules, over four years, would have been nice for her.

“I think you're kidding yourself about him, Sarah. He's a deadbeat.”

“No, he isn't. He's a very successful attorney,” Sarah said, feeling twelve years old while talking to her mother. Audrey always made her feel defensive, and backed her into corners.

“I'm not talking about his career. I'm talking about your relationship with him, or lack of one. Just where do you think this is going, after four years?” She had never expected it to go anywhere except to maybe seeing him one or two more days a week. But being put on the spot by her mother always made her uncomfortable, and feel as though she were doing something wrong.

“It's right where we want it for now, Mom. Why don't you just relax and back off about it? I don't have time for more than that right now. I'm busy with my own career.”

“I had a career and a child at your age,” Audrey said smugly, while Sarah resisted the urge to remind her that her husband had been a real deadbeat, in every possible way. He had been a zero as a husband and a father, and couldn't even hold down a job. But Sarah said nothing, as usual. She didn't want a battle with her mother, least of all today.

“I don't want a child right now, Mom.” Or maybe ever. Nor a husband, if there was even a remote chance he'd turn out like her father. “I'm happy the way I am.”

“When are you going to get a new apartment? For God's sake, Sarah, the place you're living in is a dump. You need to get a decent place, and throw out all that crap you've been dragging around since college. You need a real apartment, like a grown-up.”

“I am a grown-up. And I like my apartment.” Sarah was talking through clenched teeth. She had buried her friend and favorite client that morning, Phil had disappointed her the night before, and the last thing she needed was her mother dragging her through barbed wire over her apartment and her boyfriend. “I've got to get to work now. I'll see you on Thanksgiving.”

“You can't run away from reality forever, Sarah. You need to face your issues. If you don't, you'll waste years with Phil, or men just like him.” What she said was truer than Sarah wanted it to be. She needed to ask more of Phil, but she wasn't sure it would make a difference. And if she did, and he walked out on her, then she would have no one to spend weekends with. The loneliness of that possibility didn't appeal to her, and she didn't want to replace him with book clubs, like her mother. It was a problem Sarah hadn't solved yet, and wasn't ready to face at the moment. And being badgered by her mother was definitely not what she wanted. It just made it all seem worse.