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“Why did you come?”

She looks at me like I have asked something stupid.

“You said I had to.”

My throat tightens.

“Yes.”

“I thought something bad happened.”

“Something did happen between Colt and me. You were never in any danger.”

“You didn’t say that.”

“No.”

She picks at a loose thread on the cuff of her hoodie.

“I would have come anyway.”

I look at her.

“If you asked.”

That is worse. I put both hands in my lap.

“I was angry, and I decided for both of us without asking you.”

Tova does not rescue me from the sentence.

“I should not have done that.”

Her fingers stop moving.

“Would we still have left?”

“I do not know.”

She watches me.

“I think I still would have needed to leave that night.”

“So asking wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“It might not have changed where we slept.”

“Then what would it change?”

I think about telling her that I am her mother, and that sometimes I will make decisions she does not like because I am responsible for her. Both things are true and neither of them answers her.

“How I treated you while I decided.”

Tova looks down at her sleeve.

“I was really tired.”

“I know.”