Six days ago I told my own kid that if she walked out that door, she didn’t get to come back. Then I stood in my own kitchen and watched her do it. I’m 58 years old and I have never in my life done anything I regret the way I regret that.

Her name is Lacey. She’s 17. Five foot two, maybe a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet, and she has talked back to me since she was old enough to make a sentence. I’ll be honest with you, that girl could argue the paint off a wall. But she also used to crawl into my bed during thunderstorms until she was twelve, and she still texted me good night with three little heart things even when she was mad at me. That’s the part nobody tells you. They can drive you up the wall and break your heart in the same hour.

The thing you have to understand about Lacey is that phone. That girl slept with it in her hand. Charged it on the nightstand every single night, and if it dipped below half she got twitchy like the rest of us do without coffee. She never, and I mean never, went anywhere without it. I used to nag her about it. Go figure that’s the detail that ended up mattering.

Anyway. She came home smelling like weed three times. Three. The first two times I let it slide with a talking-to because I’m not stupid, I know how it is at that age. But the third time she walked in the door at one in the morning reeking of it, and I just lost it. We stood in the kitchen and went at each other, both of us saying things you can’t take back. And then I said it. “If you walk out that door, don’t come back.” She grabbed her keys off the counter. “Fine,” she said.

That was it. One word. The door didn’t even slam, it just clicked shut, and somehow that was worse.