Chapter 29: Fast-time Freddie's, Part 1

I failed my geography test, so Bill helped me with my homework instead of the other way around. That was funny. But when my mother came downstairs to check on us she saw that our heads really were absorbed in our lessons.

When Mama announced she was going out, for the first time I wondered if she had a secret boyfriend. She told me once that she took pride that she had never allowed random men around us when we were growing up. But I knew that my mother could not have stayed celibate from all the way back to my dad's death—or could she?

I needed to encourage her to date because otherwise she would end up in her sixties alone with a reluctant daughter as her only companion.