And so he had walked right into it, like a comedian walking into a thrown custard pie.

He knew she might not really have meant it, even if she’d thought she did. Girls of that age were so busy being overwhelmed by romance and sex that they didn’t even know what they were saying half the time. Still, there it was—the last thing he had ever expected to hear from his favorite child.

And he was ready to crumple up and cry all over again as he held the car down to the speed limit on the Interstate, but he fought back the tears because he had to keep his eyes clear, and because his wife and the younger girls were waiting at home, and because everything else that made sense in his life would be waiting there too; and besides, no civilized man would go to pieces twice in the same day.