“I just think it’d be fun.”

For the first time in a while, I see the world as a nine-year-old, not a thirty-six-year-old, and she’s right. A sleep-over would be fun.

That night, Eva sleeps with me in my bed. We’re calling it a “slumber party,” and I’m trying hard to make it different from the other nights Eva’s crept into bed with me because she’s lonely or had bad dreams.

For the first few years of Eva’s life, she slept with me or in a crib next to my bed. From the very beginning, it was just the two of us, and I couldn’t bear to put her in a separate room. It was hard enough leaving her every day to go to work. I hated having her so far away at night. But then my insomnia returned, and I couldn’t sleep—would lie awake all night, fidgeting in the dark, trying not to wake Eva—and eventually I decided she was better off in her own room.

But she’s back tonight, along with a stack of her ever-present bridal magazines, and we’re watching a Hilary Duff movie on cable and eating popcorn and hot-fudge sundaes; and even as Eva snuggles close, using my lap as a pillow, I know I’m a poor substitute for a best friend.

Remembering my own best friends, I stroke her long hair; the black tangled strands that hang down her back are still chlorine rough. I should have made her wash her hair and condition it when we returned. But that’s so not my style. Instead I ordered out for barbecue chicken pizza. Trying to distract her. Trying to distract myself.

Growing up, I had best friends, great friends, friends my parents hated.

The corner of my mouth curls as I picture Sam and Chloe, friends who wanted to be as different as I did. Sam dressed punk and Chloe Goth, but both rode skateboards as I did before we got our driver’s licenses and went for funky muscle cars and barely running sports cars. We weren’t soft, pretty girls. We were too angry. Which is probably why I got shipped off to boarding school my senior year.

Sending me to boarding school had been Dad’s idea. Dad was old school. A retired major from the Deep South. All his life, he wanted sons. In the end, all he got was me.

Slowly, I untangle the tangles in Eva’s hair, hearing the movie dialogue but not listening. I understand what Eva wants, more than she knows.

I never did get my dad’s approval, and I adored him for much of my life. But nothing I did was good enough, nothing was right. He wanted sweetness, goodness, charm, docility. And I wanted fire.

Glancing down at Eva, I see the crescent of black lashes, the slight curve of future cheekbones, the full upper lip, and the firm, rounded chin.

This, I think, is the child my father wanted. My fingertips trace Eva’s cool brow. This is the daughter he would have cherished, adored. A delicate girl. A brilliant yet eager-to-please child, one who could be molded into a southern belle, his idea of the ultimate beauty queen.

The movie ends, and Eva scoots down beneath the sheet. It’s a hot night, and we’ve no air-conditioning, and even with a fan pointed at the bed, the air is still, hot, thick, heavy.

“Mom?” Eva’s cheek nestles in the pillow, her feet reach out and wrap around my legs.

With the window open and moonlight spilling, I can see her face. Her profile is pale, goddesslike in the dark.