The cycle is unrelenting; in a minute Lacey will snap back at me that she’s old enough to do what she wants and that if I really want to go that badly I should just leave her here alone, even though she knows, she knows, I can’t do that. Every time we careen down this path I know what is coming and yet I am powerless to stop it. But this time is different. She doesn’t come at me with some snide remark. Instead, she looks up at me with tears lacing her lower eyelids. ‘Please don’t make me go.’
Norah is so explosive sometimes. If she was my mom, I would be terrified.
