“It snowed. You could hardly expect me to risk driving home from New York in a snowstorm. I could have had an accident. I could have—”

“Called,” Mac interrupted. “But leaving that aside, there was no storm; there was a dusting. Less than a quarter of an inch. That was Sunday.”

“Ari wouldn’t hear of me driving home. He invited me to stay over, so I did.” She shrugged it off. “We spent a few days together. We went shopping, to the theater. Why shouldn’t I have a life?”

“You’re welcome to one. Have it somewhere else.”

“Oh, don’t be such a baby, Mackensie. I left you my car.”

“You left me a car I couldn’t use, even if you’d bothered to also include the goddamn keys.”

“An oversight. You pushed me out the door so fast that day, it’s no wonder I didn’t remember. Don’t swear at me.” She burst into tears, lovely drops spilling copiously out of shattered blue eyes. “How can you treat me this way? How can you begrudge me a chance for happiness?”

It won’t work, Mac told herself even as her stomach cramped. Not this time. “You know I used to ask myself those questions, reversing the you and me. I’ve never been able to find the answer.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m in love. You don’t know what it’s like to feel this way about someone. How it takes over everything else so it’s only the two of you. It was just a car, Mackensie.”

“It was just my car.”

“Look what you did to mine!” Even with tears still gleaming on her cheeks, the outrage came through. “You had it towed to that—that grease pit. And that horrible man is holding it hostage.”

“So pay the ransom,” Mac suggested.

“I don’t know how you can be this mean to me. It’s because you never let yourself feel. You take pictures of feelings, you don’t have them. Now you’re punishing me because I do.”

“Okay.” Mac crouched again, scooped, shoved, pushed the scattered contents on the floor back into her mother’s bag. “I have no feelings. I’m a horrible daughter. And in that vein, I want you to leave. I want you to go.”

“I need the money for my car.”

“You’re not getting it from me.”

“But . . . you have to—”

“No.” She shoved the bag into Linda’s hand. “That’s the thing, Mom. I don’t have to. And I’m not going to. Your problem, you fix it.”

Linda’s lip trembled, her chin quivered. Not manipulation, Mac thought, not entirely. She felt what she felt, after all. And believed herself the victim.

“How am I going to get home?”

Mac picked up the phone. “I’ll call you a cab.”

“You’re not my daughter.”

“You know, the sad thing for both of us is I am.”

“I’ll wait outside. In the cold. I’m not going to stand in the same room with you for another minute.”

“They’ll pick you up in front of the main house.” Mac turned away, shut her eyes as she heard the door slam. “Yes, I need a cab at the Brown Estate. As quickly as possible.”

With her stomach in ugly knots, Mac walked over and locked her door. She’d need to add aspirin to that post-workday relaxation plan, she thought. A whole bottle ought to just about do it. Maybe she’d take the aspirin and lie down in a dark room, try to sleep off the feelings she apparently didn’t have.

She took the aspirin first, washed it down with a full glass of icy water to try to soothe the rawness in her throat. Then she simply sat down on the kitchen floor.

That was far enough.

She’d sit there until her knees stopped shaking, until her head stopped throbbing. Until the urge to burst into wild tears passed.

When the phone rang, she reached up, managed to grab it from the counter. She read the ID, answered Parker. “I’m all right.”

“I’m here.”

“I know. Thanks. But I’m all right. I called her a cab. It’ll be here in another couple minutes. Don’t let her in.”

“All right. I’m here,” she repeated. “Whatever you need.”

“Parker? She’s never going to change, so I have to. I didn’t know it would be so painful. I thought it would feel good, good and satisfying. Maybe with a little triumphant thrown in. But it doesn’t. It feels awful.”

“You wouldn’t be you if it didn’t hurt. You did the right thing, if that helps. The right thing for you. And Linda will bounce. You know she will.”

“I want to be mad.” Weary and weepy, Mac pressed her face into her updrawn knees. “It’s so much easier when I’m mad at her. Why does this break my heart?”

“She’s your mother. Nothing changes that. You’re miserable when you let her use you, too.”

“This is worse. But you’ve got a point.”

“The cab’s here. She’s going.”

“Okay.” Mac closed her eyes again. “I’m all right. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Call if you need me before.”

“I will. Thanks.”

SHE COULDN’T WORK UP THE ENTHUSIASM FOR BUBBLES AND candles and wine, but took the hot bath. She put on her oldest flannel pants, a soft comfort. She no longer wanted sleep and thought drudgery might be an answer. She’d clean her bedroom, organize her closet, her dresser, scrub the bathroom for good measure.

It was way past time for household chores and it would keep her busy for hours. Possibly days. Best of all, it was a cleansing, she decided, a symbolic act to go along with her stand with Linda.

Out with the old, in with the new. And everything fresh and ordered when the task was done. Her new life order.

She opened her closet, puffed out her cheeks, expelled a balloon of air. The only way to approach it, she decided, was the way they did it on the improvement shows on TV. Haul it out, sort, toss.

Maybe she could just burn everything and start over. Burning bridges seemed to be her current theme anyway. Squaring her shoulders, she grabbed an armload, tossed it on the bed. By the third load she asked herself why she needed so many clothes. It was a sickness, that’s what it was. No one person needed fifteen white shirts.

Fifty percent, she decided. That would be her goal. To purge out fifty percent of her wardrobe. And she’d buy those nice padded hangers. Color coordinated. And the clear, stackable shoe boxes. Like Parker.