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She punches my side, and I grin.

But as I walk the two girls home, I can’t stop the strangest, most nagging thought.

I don’t
want
Parker to become a female version of me.

A year and a half ago, my mom called me up on a random Wednesday and asked if I wanted to grab coffee.

It was a weird request. Not because I don’t like coffee, and not because I don’t love my mom. But not only do my parents live in the suburbs, but my mom
works
in the suburbs, too. She’s a high school science teacher.

So there was absolutely no reason she should be downtown on a random Wednesday, but somehow my brain didn’t register alarm bells.

It should have.

Cancer.

She and I sat in at the café for nearly two hours, but when I walked away, only that one word stuck with me.

Later, much later, I would bone up on the details.

Lump. Stage Three. Chemo. Radiation. Mastectomy. Prognosis.

All, terrible,
terrible
words, stemming from that one destructive c-word.

The months that followed were as horrible as you’d expect. I cried. A lot. Even worse, my
dad
cried. My mom never did, and that almost made the whole thing worse, because she was the one who was sick, and she was so much stronger than any of us.

She lost her hair. She was sick and frail, but never weak in spirit. I went over there at least three times a week to see her, usually more, and even on the worst days she never once failed to greet me with a smile.

I’d wanted to shave my head to be in solidarity with her, but she wouldn’t hear of it. I’d gotten my thick, dark, wavy hair from her, and she’d insisted that I keep mine long so her own hair wouldn’t be a stranger when it came back.

So many evenings we’d sit quietly in the living room with a cup of tea, listening to her favorite female jazz musicians as she’d French braid my hair, me on the floor, her on the couch behind me, wearing one of her brightly colored scarves on her bare scalp.

It got worse before it got better. Grim doctors’ appointments where the prognosis would give us a thread of hope, and not much more. A double mastectomy where she bravely had her own breasts cut away and replaced by something that looked the same, but wasn’t.

And then…

And then my mom got better.

She’s been in remission for five months now, and as full of life as she is, it seems like it’s been years since we got the good news.

Her hair’s still short, but sassily so. Her body’s growing stronger every day. So much so that we’re running a 5K together next month—a breast cancer fundraiser, where she’ll proudly pin a survivor bib onto her shirt.

I couldn’t be more proud.

Anyway, during my mom’s sickness, I always knew that I wasn’t alone, but I tried really hard not to let her sickness be about me. When I cried, it was late at night, when nobody was around. Not Lance, and not even Ben, although Ben knew that I was crying. I
knew
he knew, because some mornings I would find him asleep against my bedroom door, almost as though he’d set up camp there to guard me in my grief.

I don’t mean to sell Lance short. He was there for me the entire time.

But it was Ben who really got me through that terrible time.

Ben who’d grieved with me, as though my mom and dad were his parents.

I’ve met Ben’s
actual
parents a handful of times. At parent weekends, for graduation, and so forth. I even stayed at his dad and stepmom’s for a full week one summer when I went out to visit. They were nice.

His mom is nice, too, in a controlling, intense kind of way.

But my parents? My parents are
awesome.
My house was totally the house where other kids wanted to come over to do homework, and where my volleyball team always wanted to do their slumber parties. Not because they were lax,
Do whatever you want, kids!
parents, but because they talked to me and my friends like we were people, not children.

And none of my friends benefited quite so much from their coolness as Ben. From the day I took him home my first month of college for a home-cooked meal and to do laundry (dorm laundry rooms are the
worst
), Ben had taken to my parents, and they to him.

I’m an only child, and though they never once indicated that they wanted more kids, I definitely got the impression that if they had a son, they’d want him to be like Ben.

He never tries to kiss their ass or impress them, and that only impresses them all the more.

And they’d never, ever admit it—again, because they’re cool like that—but I’m pretty sure they preferred Ben to Lance.

Just slightly.

They were never anything less than perfectly nice to Lance when I brought him home for dinner, but my dad’s offbeat humor went over Lance’s head more often than not. And Lance, while well-intentioned, was far too deferential to my mother, who prefers someone who talks straight with her.

So tonight, I bring my parents a treat.

I bring them Ben.

“You sure it’s cool that I’m tagging along?” Ben asks for the twelfth time, as I pull my Prius into my parents’ driveway.

“Actually, no,” I say, giving him a sad look. “Maybe stay in the car?”

“You know what I mean,” he says, grabbing the bottle of wine we brought with us and shoving open the car door. “Usually Lance goes with you to family dinners.”

I pause and look at him in surprise. His tone isn’t quite petulant, but it’s…
something
, and for the first time I wonder if Ben felt left out when Lance and I started getting serious, and I started taking him over to family dinners.

In college, I always brought Ben with me when I went home, but after graduation, Lance and I started to feel like more of a thing, so I brought him instead. Obviously. He was my boyfriend.

“You know you could have come with us,” I say, shutting the car door.

“Yeah, that would have been awesome. Sitting in the backseat on the way over. Squeezing in a fifth chair at the table.”

“You came over all the time when Mom was sick,” I say.

And he had. I’d never loved my best friend more than when he volunteered—no,
insisted
—on helping out with some of Mom’s chemo appointments.

“Sure, because Lancelot wasn’t there,” he said, giving me a shit-eating grin.

I pinch his arm as we wipe our feet on the doormat, but the gesture practically breaks a nail because he’s all muscle.

He knows I hate it when he calls Lance
Lancelot.

“We’re here,” I holler, kicking off my shoes the second we get inside, making my way toward the kitchen.

“Honey!” Mom says, looking particularly glowing and radiant in a bright green turtleneck and jeans.

Her hug is warm and friendly, as always, but her hug for Ben is warmer and friendlier.

I roll my eyes as the two of them gab like long-separated best friends and head into the family room, where my dad is perched on the edge of his leather recliner. No doubt he started to get up when he heard my shout, only to become riveted by whatever sport was on.

“No. NoNoNoNo, YES! Yes!”

I glance at the TV. Baseball. Blerg.

I kiss my dad on the head and wait patiently for him to confirm that whatever call earned his
YES!
would stand. My dad
loves
sports. Not like the usual-guy level of sports adoration, but like, he freaking
loves
all things baseball, football, basketball, tennis, golf, you name it.

He played, like, every possible sport in high school, and baseball in college. He’s got crazy-good athletic skills, none of which he passed on to his only child.

But he loves me more than sports. I know, because he mutes the TV and stands up to give me a big hug and a long, searching look, even though something exciting is happening on the screen behind him.

“You okay?” he asks quietly.

I nod. “Mom told you?”

My dad and I have a great relationship, but when it came time to tell my parents that Lance had dumped me, I opted for my mom, who is a little better at doling out relationship advice than dear old dad.

His hands rub my upper arms. “Breakups are hard, but it’ll all work out the way it’s supposed to.”

“I know,” I say, even though I’m only half-convinced that he’s right.

It’s been a week and a half since Lance dumped me, and the truth is, it’s gotten worse, not better. I’m over the anger and, for the most part, over the crying, but the emptiness…the longing. That’s still there.

“Jimbo!”

We both turn as Ben enters the room, and they do the fist-bump thing that Ben taught my dad a few years ago, then Ben throws himself on the couch and reaches for the remote to unmute the TV. “Damn. Close game.”

My dad’s eyes light up, but at the last minute, he glances at me.

I smile and wave a hand as I head back toward the kitchen. “Do your thing. Mom and I are going to go drink wine and man-bash.”

“Leave me off your hit list!” Ben calls after me. “Remember who pulled your disgusting hair clog out of the shower drain today!”

I poke my head back in the room. “Will do. And
you
remember who does your laundry, and most of the dishes, and keeps you stocked in that nasty protein powder you like, and who got rid of your latest psycho sugar baby—”

Ben turns the baseball game up to an ear-blasting decibel, and I grin, having proved my point.

Although, truth? I don’t so much mind the household chores. I may have a
touch
of neat freak running through these bones.

My mom’s pouring us each a glass of sauvignon blanc when I return to the kitchen.

To my surprise, she jerks her head toward the living room at the front of the house—a room we, like most families, use at Christmas and…that’s it. We usually talk in the kitchen as she cooks and I pretend to help.

“Enchiladas are in the oven, salad’s already made,” she explains. “Besides, I want someone to appreciate the new throw pillows I splurged on. Your father’s compliments ended at
They’re pink.
”

I follow her into the room. “Silly Dad. They’re
clearly
raspberry.”

She lifts a glass to me. “Vindication! Thank you.”

I look her over as we settle into opposite chairs, but I do so subtly, knowing that she’s trying so hard to put being sick behind her. As well she should, because she looks amazing.

“So,” she says, the second I take a sip of wine. “Has he called yet?”

I shake my head, knowing immediately that she’s asking about Lance. “Nothing. Not even a freaking text since the night he dumped me.”

Mom purses her lips. “I suppose that’s not such a bad thing. A clean break is probably better than a long, drawn-out painfest.”

“That’s what I thought!” I exclaim, leaning forward. “And it’s so true in
theory.
But, in reality, it’s making me feel a little…forgettable. How can Lance just put, like, five years of togetherness out of his mind like
that
?” I snap my fingers.

She takes a sip of wine and watches me. “You miss him?”

I glance at my glass. “I miss…yeah, I guess.”

But my tone is lukewarm, and her eyebrows lift. “Maybe you miss being in a relationship more than you miss Lance?”

I bite my fingernail. “Um, kind of…”

She gives me a puzzled look, and I know why. She and I have the type of relationship where I tell her everything. But right now, I’m holding back on her, and she knows it.

“I miss sex,” I blurt out, giving a frantic look toward the entry of the room to make sure my dad is still in sports heaven with Ben.

“Ah,” she says, sitting back in her seat.

To my relief, she looks merely understanding instead of uncomfortable. Seriously. She’s the best.

Mom purses her lips. “Was Lance…Was he—was it bad? With Lance I mean?”

“Not really,” I say, knowing what she’s asking. “It had become, um…infrequent, toward the end. Which I guess should have been a warning sign. But lately I’ve just been thinking, I’m young, I’m healthy, and I just want—”

“Sex,” she says.

I take a sip of wine. A big one. “Yeah. And please tell me you’re not going to call all your friends tomorrow and tell them your daughter’s a hussy,” I say, mostly joking.

She grins. “Please. If anything, I’ll be bragging about what an awesome mom I am for being able to have this conversation.”

“I can confirm that you are, in fact, awesome,” I say. “And, as such, I’m sure you have some sort of wisdom socked away about how physical relationships aren’t everything, and I just need to cool my jets until the right guy comes along?”

“Absolutely not,” she says with a shake of her head. “I’m far too cool and liberal for that. I didn’t just live through the seventies, I embraced them in
every
way.”

I can’t hide my wince, and she gives me an evil grin. “I see the daughter’s not quite as cool as the mother.”

“Definitely not,” I mutter into my wine. Thinking about my mother and free love, or whatever. Eek.

“Don’t worry. I’ll spare you my glory days at Berkeley,” she says. “But I can tell you this, based on my experience…your heart doesn’t need to be engaged to have, um, well, fun. But you’ll enjoy it much more if you at least like the person.”

“See, that’s the thing,” I say, scooting toward the edge of the chair. “I’ve been going around to bars with friends for a week now. Not looking for a random hookup, so much as seeing what’s out there. And…
blech.
I see a good-looking guy, but two minutes into a conversation I want out.”

She nods. “Chemistry is like anything in life. The more you look for it, the harder it is to find.”

I slump back. “That’s your advice? That it’s going to be hard?”

“Nooo,”
she says slowly. “I’m just saying that maybe you’re looking for the wrong thing. You’re trying too hard to find raw animal magnetism when what you really need to be looking for is connection.”

“Raw animal magnetism, Mom? Really?”

“You know what I mean.” She waves her glass. “What I’m trying to say is…go to the bars, be twenty-four, have fun. But you’re a smart girl with a good head on your shoulders, which means a great body and a nice face is perhaps never going to be enough for you.”

“Great,” I mutter. “So I don’t get good sex until I meet my soulmate?”