she remembered being an attentive, hands-on, present mother who’d taught her kids to swim and ride their bikes and then gave them the gift of empty hours to fill, with books or swims or walks or Frisbee games with friends. And was telling a kid to amuse herself in a beautiful house right on the ocean really so awful? Poor you, Veronica would think, but never say, when Sarah got going on her lonely childhood and her neglectful mom.
