On that rather melancholy note, Rachel returned to her small kitchen and baked a frozen, premade chicken potpie and pulled a handful of salad out of a pretossed bag of greens.

She ate it all by herself with nothing but the radio for company. Rachel wondered what Daniel and Todd were eating for dinner. More hot dogs?

Rachel washed her plate and fork and set them on the drain board. Her days of needing a dishwasher were over, she mused as she contemplated the lonely utensils. The phone rang as she turned away from the sink.

“Mom? It’s me, Mark.”

Alarm bells rang in Rachel’s maternal mind. “Mark? What’s wrong?”

“Chill out, Mom. Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to see what was going down on the maternal home front. You know, see how you were doing and stuff.”

Rachel barely controlled her snort of disbelief. Yeah, right. In other words, her best beloved son wanted something from her. “I’m fine, Mark, just fine. I spent the day organizing my new apartment and guess what?”

“What?”

“It’s been four whole hours since I put the silverware away and it’s all still in the right compartments! No teaspoons mixed in with the soup spoons, no forks stuck up so the drawer can’t close, no knives left with the cutting edge up. It’s like a miracle, Mark, an honest to God miracle.”

“Very funny, Mom. When the guys here ask about my parents, one of the first things I mention is my mother’s great sense of humor. Of course then I have to break it to them that you still use snail mail because you are, like, the most totally computer illiterate person I know and couldn’t use e-mail if your life depended on it. It wrecks the image, Mom, like totally destroys it.”

Rachel laughed. “You’ll be happy to know I’m thinking about taking a computer class.”

That surprised her son. “Really? What for?”

“So I can get a job. Gotta support myself now, you know. Dad only pays alimony for the next six months. After that I’m supposed to be back on my feet and self-supporting.”

Mark’s response sounded disconcerted, as though they’d strayed into territory he’d just as soon avoid. “Oh, yeah. Right. That, um, sucks. So, uh, what else is happening?”

Rachel understood her son’s reluctance to be caught up in adult problems. She thought back over her day. Really, only one item of import stuck in her mind. “I met a guy,” she reported. “He’s going to try to raise his little nephew all by himself. He crashed his nephew’s little red wagon right in front of my new place. The little boy was crying and groceries were everywhere. I had to go out and save them. Todd—that’s the child—is a little pistol, but Daniel—that’s the guy—seemed real nice. Sincere, but in over his head, if you know what I mean.”

“A guy with a wagon? Sounds like a dork.”

“He’s not a dork!” God, no. Daniel Van Scott was anything but dorky. Oh, man, here it was hours later and Rachel got the shivers just thinking about him. She was going to give herself high blood pressure if she didn’t watch out. End up on medication like her mother, for crying out loud. “He just tripped, that’s all.”

“Like I said, sounds like a dork.”

“Well, he’s not.” Not by a long shot. “Now, what’s new with you, Mark? Your classes going okay? You’re studying enough? Are you meeting any nice girls?” Ones that still go to church?

Her son’s voice came back sounding entirely too casual for a mother’s peace of mind. “Yeah, I’ve met a few. Most of them are sorority tools, if you know what I mean, but this one’s pretty cool. She’s vegetarian. I had no idea meat was so totally bad for you and the environment, too. I’m never eating it again, man.”

Oh, God. “Mark, how will you get enough protein in your diet? How will you—”

“Chill out, Mom. I’ll be fine. But what I need is one of those small refrigerators for my room. You know, so I can keep yogurt and stuff like that on hand.”

Rachel walked into her living room with the cordless phone and sank into the sofa. She tucked her feet up underneath herself. “So go get one.”

“Mooom.”

Her son’s disembodied voice came back at her and she had no trouble imagining the despairing look on his face.

“They’re expensive, you know? I’d need like, eighty or ninety dollars put into my checking account. Think you could do that for me?”

Ah, they’d reached the crux of the phone call. Money. She’d been warned about this from friends with older children. “Mark, you had three hundred dollars when your father and I dropped you off at school just a very short time ago.”

“Yeah, but I bought this totally awesome game for my computer and I had to have a good bike for getting around campus ‘cuz nobody uses the campus bus, so I turned in the pass you guys bought me and spent the cash on a bike helmet, you’ll be glad to know. And I bought this unbelievable mountain bike. It was on sale and everything, so how could I go wrong?”

Rachel put her hand over her eyes and collapsed back into the sofa. “You’ve already gone through all your money? Mark, that should have lasted you a couple of months!”

“How was I supposed to know something else would come up that I’d need?” Mark asked, his logic clear, at least in his own mind. “I mean, you should see the graphics on this computer game I got. It was going to be my entertainment for the semester. But now, with this girl and all, she’ll probably want to go to the movies and stuff. And I really need that refrigerator—actually, a small microwave would be cool, too. A lot of the guys here have them. And at least I’m better than my roommate. He never takes his girlfriend anywhere! All they do is fool around. One of these nights that top bunk is going to crash right down on top of me—probably kill me.”

Rachel just about collapsed. “Your roommate and his girlfriend are…doing that while you’re in the room?” she squeaked. Oh, God. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

Mark paused in his spiel, evidently aware he may have gone too far. “Well, yeah, but it’s no big deal,” he quickly assured his mother. “I mean, you probably can’t remember back to when you were interested in sex, but it’s pretty normal for my age group, you know.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God. She should have had a talk with Mark before he’d left for school. She should have bought him some condoms, made sure they’d gotten into his suitcase. She’d gotten pregnant with Mark on prom night, her senior year in high school. It had been her first foray into the mysterious world of male-female—looking back on it, boy-girl—sex stuff. It had changed the direction of her entire life and Mark was only a few months past that point in his life. He needed at least another three or four years before he took a chance like that. It could change your life completely. Rachel knew.

She’d given Mark an eleven-thirty curfew on his prom night. Ron had smirked, but Rachel had been unwilling to take any chances. Was Mark making up for lost opportunities now?

And her son didn’t think she remembered the pull of sexual feelings? All she had to do was think about the rush she’d gotten just looking at Daniel Van Scott this afternoon and Rachel knew she wasn’t dead yet. Not by a long shot.

Mark cleared his throat. “Uh, Mom, you still there?”

Maybe, maybe not. This could all be some kind of strange out-of-body type experience. She wasn’t really having this bizarre phone conversation with her own, carefully raised son. “Mark, I’m afraid you’re going to have to talk to your father,” Rachel heard herself say. “Going through all your spending money in a little over a week was a choice you made. I guess as far as I’m concerned, my feeling is now you have to live with that decision. Either that or get a part-time job. At any rate, it’s something you’ll have to deal with.

“By the way, I found some of your old Tonka trucks when I was packing. I couldn’t help keeping them when your dad and I cleaned out the old house. I was thinking I’d give them to that little boy I was telling you about. He’s the perfect age for them.”