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Neil eave him more mobility to toss his ar at your mother but— No No, I am not sorry It is not unreasonable to have a basic expectation of privacy in one’s own bedroouesthouse, she has to respect the fact that I don’t want her walking through our door, let alone our bedroom door, whenever she wishes!”

I understood where he was co from, but I’d tried to explain, more than once, how hard that particular habit would die My fareat boundaries when it ca into each other’s hoht We’ve hadthis birthday She just wants to make me feel better”

“She wants to h the roof?” he denosis?”

I couldn’t blaot it “Thanks for the reminder of my mortality Is that my birthday present?”

Neil shook his head in frustration “I still do not understand why thirty is such a terrible age”

“Because that’s the age—” I began, preparing to repeat the reasoning I’d stated over and over for the past six weeks

I didn’t have to, because Neil did it forfalls apart’ Yes I know And as I’ve stated many, many times, that is ridiculous”

“Is it really that ridiculous?” I asked, gesturing to hs He couldn’t see the jag just days before because I’d found the rising blue threat of a varicose vein on the outside of the left one I didn’t want to bring it up too specifically in front of Olivia because she didn’t deserve to inherit the weird body hang-ups the woenerations

“That’s not the issue here The issue is yourto continue discussing…” he hesitated, glancing at Olivia “What we’ve been discussing, then this must be addressed”

That thing we’d been discussing was the possibility of our boyfriend, El-Mudad,in with us We rarely talked about it when Olivia was around, but plans had hesitantly been for over the past few visits She loved El-Mudad, and we didn’t want her to becoht not happen

She gave me a look copied directly from her late mother It was eerie howbeen less than a year old when her parents died “This is not in front of Olivia?”

Neil’s anger reluctantly faded to a fond se of the bed “Don’t worry about not-in-front-of-Olivia It’s Sophie’s birthday today And I love that you helped wake her up with such a beautiful cake Did you and Rebecca pick it out?”

Olivia’s preschooler mind still didn’t follow conversations well, despite howcould sometimes be “You were funny, Afí”